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pope's Jiiad 

IBooks I. VI, XXI I, and XXI V 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

cLpJ. J_9coftmght No 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



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THE 



ILIAD OF HOMER 

(Books I, VI, XXII, and XXIV) 

TRANSLATED BY 

ALEXANDER POPE 



' But Pope took up his parable, a7id knit 
The woof of wisdom with tJie warp of wit ; 
He trimined tJie me aster e on its equal feet 
A7id smoothed and fitted till tJie line was neat ; 
He taught the pause with due effect to fall ; 
He taught the epigram to come at call." 

— Austin Dobson 



EDITED BY 

WARWICK JAMES PRICE, B.A. 

MASTER OF ENGLISH, ST. PAUL'S SCHOOL, CONCORD, N.JJ 



MARi4lR9Bi 




LEACH, SHEWELL, & SANBORN, 

BOSTON. NEW YORK. CHICAGO. 



k_ 



^ 






copyright, 1890, 
I'.y Leach. Bhbwbll, & Sahbobn. 



L C Control Number 




tmp96 



027680 



C J. PETER8 & Son, Ttpoqeapiikbs. 



Berwick & Smitii, Printers 



PREFACE. 



It is most judicious to include in the college Eng- 
lish requirements the following books of Pope's Homer. 
And this for reasons further than an acquaintance with 
the work of the great eighteenth century poet, or the 
study of a passage so justly famous as the parting of 
Hector and Andromache. " Childe Harold " introduces 
Lord Byron to the student, and enforces an acquaintance 
with the Spenserian stanza. " The Ancient Mariner " 
must bring with it some knowledge of ballad poetry as 
well as of Coleridge. So this great translation shows 
us not only Pope, but also the artificial versification of 
the so-called Augustan age in England, and at its height. 
But Pope's " Iliad " is in another way of even greater 
value to the student. Of necessity it keeps Homer be- 
fore him quite as prominently as Pope. In this it shows 
more markedly than do any of the other required books, 
the close relationship that should exist between English 
and classical studies. Xenophon and Caesar, Livy and 
Herodotus, Demosthenes and Cicero, should stand for a 
vast deal more than the mere acquiring of Greek and 
Latin accidence. And this English " Iliad " should give 
to any student a greater interest, a clearer understand- 



iv PREFACE. 

ing ? and a truer love for that grandest of all epics 
wherein we learn the story of him who won — 

" Honor, a friend, anguish, untimely death ; " 

an epic which for centuries has been a passion and 
ennoblement among men of every station. 

W J. P. 
St. Paul's School, 
March, 1896. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

Biographical Introduction 1 

The Iliad — 

Book 1 15 

Book YI 45 

Book XXII 71 

Book XXIY 97 

Notes — 

Book 1 133 

Book YI 142 

Book XXII 150 

Book XXIY 157 

Dictionary of Proper Names 165 



BIOGRAPHICAL INTRODUCTION. 



In the history of English poetry two periods appear when it 
may be said that the poetic art became enslaved, when nature, 
passion, imagination, disappeared, while a worship of " con- 
ceits," properly called quaint, and a seeking after novel turns 
of thought, tended to lessen sense and clearness even while 
adding elegance to the form. The first of these periods be- 
gins to grow prominent in the closing years of Elizabeth's 
reign ; the second virtually extends over the years intervening 
between the Restoration and the opening of the present cen- 
tury. Milton's " Lycidas " dealt the death-blow to the first, 
the lyrical ballads of Wordsworth and Coleridge ended the 
second. In this second period of artificiality appears the 
name of Alexander Pope, — the greatest poet of his century, 
the greatest artificial poet of any century. 

From 1675 to 1725 England was in a state of literary tran- 
sition. Education was limited in its attainments, confined in 
its territory. The theatres were not yet redeemed from the 
licentiousness attendant upon the Restoration. It was an age 
of unbridled frivolity, scandal, and slander. Religion was the 
butt of wits. Yet the great middle class was fast coming into 
prominence : a reading public was rapidly forming. For the 
first time in its history literature grew independent of patron- 
age and met with greater honor, though still honored, it must 

1 



2 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

be said, more for party than for itself. It was an age of crit- 
icism, when the French and " classic " influences at work dc 
manded lightness of touch and elegance of form. Satire, wit, 
the lesser morals, — these, with criticism, drove out the deeper 
problems of human thought. The country was forgotten, the 
town was the theme. The result of all this is a prose abso- 
lutely clear and simple, a verse as artificial as exquisite in 
form. The foremost poet of society, as apart from nature, the 
exponent of this "classicism," was Alexander Tope. 

He was born in Lombard Street, London, on the '21st of 
May, 1688. His father, a retired linen-draper, was a Roman 
Catholic, and soon after the poet's birth, induced, it may be, 
by the social disabilities due to his religion, removed to Bin- 
field, on the edge of Windsor Forest. Here Pope's early 
years were spent, and here was acquired what little educa- 
tion he was to receive from others: that is, the merest rudi- 
ments of Greek and Latin, which were taughl him by the 
three or four priests who successively took him in charge, the 
religion of his parents excluding him from the public schools 
and the universities. In the strict import of the word. Pope 
was never a scholar, but, on the other hand, he was in one way 
a gainer by this apparent deprivation; for not being able to 
read for words he read for the sense, and early stored his mind 
with the stories and legends of the older writers. 

In his own tongue he was a voracious reader, especially 
in poetry and criticism, and this by his twelfth birthday. 
Indeed, when fifteen, he was conversant enough with the work 
of Homer and Virgil, Ovid, Statins, and Claudian, Spenser, Mil- 
ton, and Cowley, to compose an "epic " of some four thousand 
lines in imitation of their poems. tk Not," as he says, -out of 
any vanity, but humility. I saw how defective my own things 
were, and endeavored to mend my manner by copying the 



INTRODUCTION. 3 

good strokes of others." And so successful was he in this 
early " endeavor " that some of the most polished couplets 
found in his later work were taken without change from this 
" Alcander, Prince of Rhodes." 

His first published work, the " Pastorals," appeared in 1709. 
It showed as great art and finish as any of his later writings ; 
further, it showed him head and shoulders above his contem- 
poraries. But it also shows (as does the " Windsor Forest " 
later) that his inspiration springs from books, not nature, and 
that the constant feature to be noted is the verse rather than 
the subject. 1 

In this same year he wrote his " Essay on Criticism," which 
appeared in 1711. Here Pope showed the true bent of his 
genius. The precepts laid down were far from original or 
new ; the world had heard them from Quintilian and Aristotle, 
from Horace and Boileau ; but the expression was happy, 
while the critical power and judgment displayed suggested 
one of much greater maturity than twenty-three. " Wit and 
fine Writing," said Addison, " doth not consist so much in 
Advancing Things that are new as in giving Things that are 
known an agreeable Turn." It was just such "Wit and fine 
Writing," with many an « agreeable Turn " that that age 
wanted; and young Pope's reputation was established. 

1 As an instance of Pope's lack of true appreciation for nature, and 
of his inability to describe its beauties, the following lines may be 
quoted. Not a phrase but is either wrong or vague. R. H. Dana 
asks, " Had he ever seen the sea? " 

" As when the winds, ascending by degrees, 
First move the whitening surface of the seas, 
The billows float in order to the shore, 
The waves behind roll on the waves before, 
Till with the growing storm the deeps arise, 
Foam o'er the rocks, and thunder to the skies." 



4 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Then was published (1712) that poem which Macaulay calls 
his best, which Stopford Brooke considers " the most brilliant 
occasional poem in the language," and in which De Quincey 
finds "the most exquisite monument of playful fancy that uni- 
versal literature offers," — " The Rape of the Lock." It Beems 
that one Lord Petre had cut a lock of hair from the head of 
Miss Arabella Fermer, a maid of honor to the queen. This 
familiarity was resented, and not only was all friendly inter- 
course between the families brought to an end. but actual 
trouble threatened. To many the incident would have sug- 
gested no more than an epigram or a sonnet: Pope produced 
a humorous epic, where, amidst sylphs, gnomes, and nymphs, 
amidst beaux and belles, fans and furbelows, tea-cups and 
powdered heads, and in a manner ludicrously serious, he draws 
an animated picture of the human life and manners of the 
time, with all its whims and foibles evident, every character 
clearly marked and distinguished. To the student it is imma- 
terial whether this poem Laughed the rival factions into har- 
mony, for in it may be seen what Pope was capable of when a 
subject was suited to his wit and spirit : and if we must grant 
the claim of those who find in him no imagination, we may as 
surely find here the proof of decided fancy. 

In contrast to this poem stand the « Windsor Forest " (1713) 
and the "Epistle of Eloisa to A.belard M (1717). For here we 
see what Pope could not do. The former poem is said to have 
so pleased Dean Swift that he recommended it to Stella in the 
highest terms. But modern criticism does not agree with the 
Dean. Here and there in it are lines of pretty description, 
here and there in the " Eloisa to Abelard " is a verse or two of 
what may pass for passionate intensity ; but it is evident that 
a true insight into natural beauty, or a deep appreciation of 
human love, was impossible to one wholly taken up with the 



INTRODUCTION. 5 

form of his verse. To us the "Eloisa to Abelard" exhibits 
only vague generalities, sought antitheses, forced apostrophes, 
a cold and false sentiment ; in spite of Dr. Johnson we cannot 
find the least show of elevation or dignity. And in the " Wind- 
sor Forest," where we might have expected some description 
of the glades and glens made memorable by Shakespeare, and 
colored now by all the enchantment of earlier memories, we 
are introduced to dismal classic deities moving in a landscape 
far more suggestive of Italian artificiality and stiffness than of 
rural England, 

The same year that this poem was offered to the public 
saw the public invited to contribute towards a translation of 
Homer's " Iliad." By this time Pope's friends were among 
the foremost men of England ; l and all seem to have done their 
best in furthering the subscription — the great Dean Swift 
alone, in his characteristic arrogance, declaring that the poet 
should not begin to print till " I have a thousand guineas for 
him." In 1715 the actual labor commenced. At first Pope 
was appalled at the task he had undertaken. He wrote of feel- 
ing as one on a long journey, uncertain where to go, and 
doubting if he would ever reach his goal ; and even added that 
hanging would be preferable to further effort. But in 1720 
the last line had been polished, and the book started on its 
career, which, if success be measured by fame and money, was 
to be the most successful of all of Pope's writings. Whether 
from prudence or principle Pope had never identified himself 
with either party, 2 and now both Whig and Tory took up his 

1 Swift, Bolingbroke, Peterborough, Gay, Parnell, Prior, Ar- 
buthnot. 

2 If further reason be sought for the dedication to Congreve, than 
that given by Pope, it may be that Congreve, too, was not politi- 
cally connected. 



6 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

work. Six volumes appeared, for each of which Lintot paid 
£200, besides furnishing free the copies for subscribers. Of 
these some five hundred odd had signed (and among them 
almost every one of importance), taking among them six hun- 
dred and fifty copies. For these the translator received a 
guinea apiece, so that his profits amounted to about £5,300. 
Add to this the £3,500 received for the "Odyssey," ] and we 
find nearly £9,000 accruing to Pope, who thus became enabled 
to live in ease at his new-bought villa at Twickenham. This 
alteration in the circumstances and surroundings of the poet's 
outward life is as clearly marked by a corresponding change 
in his work; but before speaking of this mention must be 
made of another poem. 

" The Dunciad " was written from two motives. The first 
maybe termed a zeal for literature. It musl be remembered 
that at this period literature was not only growing in impor- 
tance, but also was being lowered, — becoming of more impor- 
tance because of greater use, being lowered because that use 
was often, if not generally, low. Able men had made of it a 
purely political tool, a means of furthering little ambitions by 
abject flattery ; and smaller men had. in an equally stupid but 
even baser way, degraded it by a shameless abuse. For this 
both parties are arraigned by Pope with that supreme satiric 
art which is his most immortal part. The second and stronger 
motive of the poet was a desire for personal revenge. Like 
nearly all men of weak physique, Pope was of a nervous 
and irascible temperament. What another might have dis- 
regarded or scorned, so easily and so deeply wounded this 

1 Pope did but half of this, working with Broome and Fenton. 
It is much inferior to the " Iliad," the declamatory style seeming 
more out of place in its romantic narrative. 



INTB OB UCTION. 7 

" vital, electric spirit, pitiably caged," that bitter reply became 
a necessity. So, with the deadly earnestness and savage- 
ness of a Swift, in words that not only wound but tear the 
wounds, this little giant answers his Grub Street critics. 
This " Iliad of the Dunces " may not be interesting as a 
whole, for much of it deals with names and details known 
only to a close student of the period ; but we must recognize 
in it some splendid nights, and also learn from it that Pope's 
true strength lay in moral reflections joined to bitter person- 
alities. It is the bitterest of satires, the most elaborate of 
allegories. 

The last part of the poet's life was spent at Twickenham. 
Here many of his hours were passed in giving an " artful wild- 
ness," a " pleasing intricacy," to what he terms his " scanty 
plot." Arcade, grove, and grotto grew day by day ; but " vil- 
lakin " and all have long since disappeared, and no trace is left 
us of this period of his life except the poems then written, — 
the " Essay on Man," the " Moral Essays," and the " Epistles 
and Satires." And yet what glorious remains these are ! Here 
is Pope's ripest work ; here we find an unmatched rivalry in 
the use of the heroic couplet, wedded to an unrivalled power 
of satire. It has been complained that these poems are too 
didactic, too philosophical ; that this very philosophy is often 
weak, and seldom, if ever, the writer's own ; that certain prin- 
ciples have received an undue weight because of the masterly 
form in which they are here expressed. But even were all 
this true (and answers can be made to every charge), yet it 
is equally true that a reader must seek far to find types of 
character so terse and finished ; it is equally sure that certain 
single truths have never found more splendid statement. For 
where is to be found a finer appreciation of that phase of 
savage life which looks for its religion in the natural world 



8 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

around it? 1 Where a more beautiful expression of that truth 
in our own theology that all tilings exist in God? 2 And 
Ruskin has justly called the following " the most complete, 
concise, and lofty expression of moral temper existing in Eng- 
lish words : " — 

" Never elated, while one man's oppressed ; 
Never dejected, whilst another's blessed." 3 

And mingled with such thoughts as these we find the old 
vices and frailties of man assailed with more wit and force 
than ever before — the pungent and direct attacks of an ob- 
servant man long conversant with the BOciety of which he 
writes. 

In 1744, at his country home. Pope died of an asthma. 
Towards the end he grew delirious; hut in the intervals of 
sanity he ever asked after his friends — his humanity out- 
lived his understanding. The scene about his bed as Ids final 
moment approached is well known. His acquiescence in con- 
fessing and receiving the last sacrament, not because it was 
essential, but because it was right, is only one final proof that 
his life had been on the whole upright, and he knew it. It 
gives us a warmer feeling towards one who was scarcely of the 
kind to engender it. And then whatever bitterness or little- 
ness or deception may have marked his life is forgotten in 
reading of the peculiar tenderness and love the little man 
always evinced for his mother. It was not characteristic of 
the age to hold any high opinion of woman. Pope himself 
was in all other cases lacking in the deference even of a Steele. 

i " Essay on Man," Epistle I., lines 90-113. 

a Ibid., lines 327-341. 

3 Ibid., Epistle IV., lines 323, 324. 



INTB OB UCT10N. 9 

But towards his mother he was ever as dutiful and affectionate 
as I like to imagine him when, as a boy, he read to her under 
the trees at Binfield. 1 

Pope's life is full of contradictions, — a mighty intellect in 
a puny frame, 2 an agreeable voice 3 and a temper generally 
spoken of by those who knew him as "waspish," constantly 
declaring his insensibility to criticism yet writhing under it 
as few have done, apparently disregarding fame yet actually 
courting it, affecting superiority to those born great yet con- 
stantly boasting of his great friends. Much is but a part of 
the artifice which was habitual to him, and which, with his 
irritability and occasional meanness, we may well believe due 
to the pain which racked his puny frame. The blessing De 
Quincey writes of, " a fine intellect joined to a healthy stom- 
ach," Pope had only in part. But after all is said there is still 
much to admire. Unmercenary in a mercenary age, never 
flattering to gain his selfish ends, and that, too, at a time when 
such a course was far too customary to draw remark, endowed 
with an indomitable will and a marked genius that made him 
a force in his century — Pope was truly great. " In his own 
province he still stands unapproachably alone. If to be the 
greatest satirist of individual men rather than of human na- 
ture, if to be the highest expression which the life of the court 

1 In the garden at Twickenham, in the loveliest of its vistas, stood 
an obelisk, surrounded, as was then customary, with weeping wil- 
lows, and inscribed : — 

" To the best of mothers, and most loved of women." 

2 He was but little over four feet in height, somewhat hunch- 
backed, and so weak that he had to be dressed in canvas stays, and 
wear three or four times the usual amount of clothes. 

3 " A sweet voice, large brilliant eyes, an eager, precocious tem- 
perament, and an inordinate love of books." — Austin Dobson. 



10 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 






and the ballroom has ever found in verse, if to have added 
more phrases to our language than any other but Shakespeare, 
if to have charmed four generations, make a man a great 
— then he is one. He was the chief founder of an artificial 
style of writing, which in his hands was living and powerful, 
because he used it to express artificial modes of thinking, and 
an artificial state of society. Measured by any high standard 
of imagination, he will be found wanting ; tried by any 
of wit, he is unrivalled." i 

THE TRANSLATION' OF THE ILIAD. 

Pope had always shown an interest in Homer. It is said 
that when but eight years of age he attempted a metrical trans- 
lation of parts of the first book, and it is a well-known storv 
that at twelve he had arranged, partly in translation, partly 
in original verse, a tragedy on Homeric Bubjects the parts in 
which were to be taken by his fellows and himself, th< 
dener personating Ajax. The elaborate translation of his later 
years w T as first suggested by Sir William Trumbull, Secretary 
01 State under William III. He had lived for a time near 
Binfield, had seen something of young Tope, and pleased with 
his precocity had proposed just such a task as was attempted 
later. The completion of the work and its great success have 
already been spoken of. It remains to speak in a little more 
detail of its value as a rendering of Homer, and of its own 
intrinsic merits as an English poem. 

It has been said that for fitly rendering Homer a medium 
is called for that shall show the resources both of verse and 
prose; prose because of Homer's large objective veracity, his 
concernment in every-day life and things, his continuity and 
actuality; poetry to reach that diffused but ever-present joy, 

1 James Russell Lowell's " Among My Books." 



INTRODUCTION. 11 

that taste for beauty, sense of pleasure, and elevation of feel- 
ing. Perhaps the English hexameter most nearly fulfils this 
requirement, but so far it has proved disappointing. Indeed, 
no translation up to this time, excepting only the masterly 
work of Lang, Leaf, and Myers, gives a reader any true under- 
standing of the calm, clear beauty of the Greek. Least of all 
can a form of speech so Latinized as Pope's reproduce the 
sharp-edged pictures of the older epic where sight rather than 
thinking seems to have dictated the expression. Any conven- 
tional verbiage must smother the vivid natural images, and 
deaden the Homeric phrase. Any poet dealing largely in alter- 
natives, antitheses, and climaxes of feeling, as does Pope, is 
naturally at a disadvantage in paraphrasing the lines of one 
whose hall-marks are simplicity and directness. Homer is 
never ornate nor pointed ; Pope always is. Pope depends on 
reason and wit; Homer breathes passion, high imagination, 
and what may be spoken of as an uneasy sense of beauty. 
But Pope started out to produce smooth verse and clear 
sense, rather than exactly to render his author. He could not 
have turned out a true translation, indeed, when his lack of 
Greek learning threw him back upon French and Latin ver- 
sions, upon earlier English translations, or upon the assistance 
of more scholarly but less poetic friends. He worked from 
a Homer minus Homer's force and freedom, a Homer orna- 
mented with epigrams to suit the taste of the age. His tools 
were a settled diction and a ready-made style, regular, neat, 
and terse. The result could never have been Homer, but it is 
an English poem of sustained vivacity and emphasis, a fine 
epic as epics went in the days of Anne — " A very pretty 
poem, Mr. Pope, but not Homer." i 

1 Bentley 



12 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

But something is to be said on the other side. We may 
dislike the style, we may find the ceaselessly regular return of 
the csesural pause wearisome and monotonous ; but we must 
recognize the absolute clearness that leaves the meaning to be 
caught at first sight, and above all must we appreciate the lit- 
erary art and power able to set up the model for a century. 
Gray and Gibbon praised it, and the great Dr. Johnson wrote, 
" It is certainly the noblest version of poetry which the world 
has ever seen, and its publication must therefore be considered 
as one of the great events in the annals of learning." 

So, in the study of Pope's Homer, we must look for more 
than an apt rendering of the Greek. We must here Bee a style 
the most regular, refined, and artificial, graceful and, at times, 
even melodious, terse and pointed always. We must 
a Greek translation than an English epic justly held a classic. 



For what remains, I beg to be excused from tin 4 ceremonies 

of taking leave at the end of my work ; ami from embarrae 
myself, or others, with any defences or apologies about it. But 
instead of endeavoring to raise a vain monument to myself, of 
the merits or difficulties of it (which must be left to the world, 
to truth, and to posterity), let me leave behind me a memorial 
of my friendship with one of the most valuable men, as well as 
finest writers, of my age and country; one who lias tried, and 
knows by his own experience, how hard an undertaking it is 
to do justice to Homer ; and one who (I am sure) sincm. 
joices with me at the period of my labor-. To him, therei 
having brought this long work to a conclusion. T desire to dedi- 
cate it; and to have the honor and satisfaction of placing to- 
gether, in this manner, the names of Mr. Congkevk, ami of 

A. POPE. 

March 25, 1720. 



THE ARGUMENT. 

THE CONTENTION OF ACHILLES AND AGAMEMNON. 

In the war of Troy, the Greeks, having sacked some of the neigh- 
boring towns, and taking from thence two beautiful captives, Chryseia 
and Brise'is, allotted the first to Agamemnon, and the last to Achilles. 
Chryses, the father of Chryseis, and priest of Apollo, comes to the 
Grecian camp to ransom her; with which the action of the poem 
opens, in the tenth year of the Biege. The priest being refused and 
insolently dismissed by Agamemnon, entreats for vengeance from his 

god, who intliets a pestilence on tin- Greeks. Achilles calls a council, 

and encourages Chalcas t<> declare the cause of it. who attributes it to 
the refusal of Chryseis. The sing, being obliged to send hack his cap. 
tive, enters into a furious contest with Achilles, which Nestor paci- 
fies; however, as he had the absolute Command of the army, lie >»i/cs 
on Brise'is in revenge. Achillea in discontent withdraws himself and 
his forces from the rest of the Greeks : and complaining to Thetis, 
she supplicates Jupiter to render them Bensible of the wrong done to 
her son, by giving victory to the Trojans. Jupiter, grunting her suit, 
incenses Juno, between whom the debate runs high, till they an 
onciled by the address of Vulcan. 

The time of two-and-twenty days is taken up in this hook: nine 
during the plague, one in the council and quarrel of the princes, and 
twelve for Jupiter's stay with the Ethiopians, at whose return Thetis 
prefers her petition. The scene lies in the Grecian camp, then 
changes to Chrysa, and lastly to Olympus. 



THE ILIAD. 



BOOK I. 



Achilles' wrath, to Greece the direful spring 

Of woes unnumber'd, heavenly Goddess, sing ! 

That wrath which hurl'd to Pluto's gloomy reign 

The souls of mighty chiefs untimely slain : 

Whose limbs, unburied on the naked shore, 5 

Devouring dogs and hungry vultures tore : 

Since great Achilles and Atrides strove, 

Such was the sovereign doom, and such the will of Jove ! 

Declare, Muse ! in what ill-fated hour 
Sprung the fierce strife, from what offended power ? 10 
Latona's son a dire contagion spread, 
And heap'd the camp with mountains of the dead ; 
The king of men his reverend priest defied, 
And, for the king's offence, the people died. 

For Chryses sought with costly gifts to gain 15 

His captive daughter from the victor's chain. 
Suppliant the venerable father stands ; 
Apollo's awful ensigns grace his hands : 
By these he begs : and, lowly bending down, 
Extends the sceptre and the laurel crown. 20 

He sued to all, but chief implor'd for grace 

15 



16 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

The brother-kings of Atreus' royal race : 

" Ye kings and warriors ! may your vows be crown'd, 
And Troy's proud walls lie level with the ground ; 
May Jove restore you, when your toils are o'er, 
Safe to the pleasures of your native shore. 
But oh ! relieve a wretched parent's pain, 
And give Chryseis to these arms again ; 
If mercy fail, yet let my presents move, 
And dread avenging Phoebus, son of Jove." 30 

The Greeks in shouts their joint assent declare, 
The priest to reverence, and release the fair 
Not so Atrides : he, with kingly pride, 
Bepuls'd the sacred sire, and thus replied: 

"Hence on thy life, and fly these hostile plains, as 
Nor ask, presumptuous, what the king detains : 
Hence, with thy laurel crown, and golden rod, 
Nor trust too far those ensigns of thy god. 
Mine is thy daughter, priest, and shall remain; 
And prayers, and tears, and bribes, shall plead in vain ; 40 
Till time shall rifle every youthful grace, 
And age dismiss her from my cold end trace, 
In daily labors of the loom employ'd, 
Or doom'd to deck the bed she once enjov'd. 
Hence then! to Argos shall the maid retire, 45 

Far from her native soil, and weeping sire." 

The trembling priest along the shore return'd, 
And in the anguish of a father mourn'd. 
Disconsolate, not daring to complain, 
Silent he wander'd by the sounding main : 50 



BOOK I. 17 

Till, safe at distance, to his god he prays, 
The god who darts around the world his rays. 

" Smintheus ! sprung from fair Latona's line, 
Thou guardian power of Cilia the divine, 
Thou source of light ! whom Tenedos adores, 55 

And whose bright presence gilds thy Chrysa's shores ; 
If e'er with wreaths I hung thy sacred fane, 
Or fed the flames with fat of oxen slain ; 
God of the silver bow ! thy shafts employ, 
Avenge thy servant, and the Greeks destroy/' 60 

Thus Chryses pray'd : the fav'ring power attends, 
And from Olympus' lofty tops descends. 
Bent was his bow, the Grecian hearts to wound ; 
Fierce as he mov'd, his silver shafts resound. 
Breathing revenge, a sudden night he spread, 65 

And gloomy darkness roll'd around his head. 
The fleet in view, he twang'd his deadly bow, 
And hissing fly the feather' d fates below. 
On mules and dogs th' infection first began ; 
And last, the vengeful arrows fix'd in man. 70 

For nine long nights, through all the dusky air 
The pyres thick-flaming shot a dismal glare. 
But ere the tenth revolving day was run, 
Inspired by Juno, Thetis' god-like son 
Conven'd to council all the Grecian train ; 75 

For much the goddess mourn'd her heroes slain. 

Th' assembly seated, rising o'er the rest, 
Achilles thus the king of men address'd : 

"Why leave we not the fatal Trojan shore, 



18 THE ILIAD OF UOMEB. 

And measure back the seas we crossed before ? so 

The plague destroying whom the sword would spare, 

? Tis time to save the few remains of war. 

But let some prophet or some sacred sage, 

Explore the cause of great Apollo's rage ; 

Or learn the wasteful vengeance to remove 86 

By mystic dreams, for dreams descend from Jove. 

If broken vows this heavy curse have laid, 

Let altars smoke, and hecatombs be paid. 

So heaven aton'd shall dying Greece restore, 

And Phoebus dart his burning shafts no more." 90 

He said, and sat : when Chalcas thus replied ; 
Chalcas the wise, the Grecian priest and guide. 
That sacred seer, whose comprehensive view 
The past, the present, and the future knew: 
Uprising slow the venerable sage m 

Thus spoke the prudence and the fears of age: 

" Belov'd of Jove, Achilles! would'sl thou know 
Why angry Phoebus bends his fatal bow ? 
First give thy faith, and plight a prince's word 
Of sure protection, by thy pow'r and sword, 100 

For I must speak what wisdom would conceal. 
And truths, invidious to the great, reveal. 
Bold is the task, when subjects, grown too v\ 
Instruct a monarch where his error lies; 
For though we deem the short-liv'd fury past, 105 

'Tis sure, the mighty will revenge at last.*' 

To whom Pelides. " From thy inmost soul 
Speak what thou know'st, and speak without control. 



BOOK I. 19 

Ev'n by that god I swear, who rules the day, 

To whom thy hands the vows of Greece convey, no 

And whose blest oracles thy lips declare ; 

Long as Achilles breathes this vital air, 

Xo daring Greek, of all the numerous band, 

Against his priest shall lift an impious hand : 

Xot ern the chief by whom our hosts are led, 115 

The king of kings, shall touch that sacred head." 

Encouraged thus, the blameless man replies : 
" Nor vows unpaid, nor slighted sacrifice, 
But he, our chief, provoked the raging pest, 
Apollo's vengeance for his injured priest. 120 

Nor will the god's awakened fury cease, 
But plagues shall spread, and funeral fires increase, 
Till the great king, without a ransom paid, 
To her own Chrysa send the black-ey'd maid. 
Perhaps, with added sacrifice and prayer, 125 

The priest may pardon, and the god may spare." 

The prophet spoke ; when, with a gloomy frown, 
The monarch started from his shining throne ; 
Black choler filFd his breast that boil'd with ire, 
And from his eyeballs flash'd the living fire. 130 

" Augur accnrs'd ! denouncing mischief still, 
Prophet of plagues, for ever boding ill ! 
Still must that tongue some wounding message bring, 
And still thy priestly pride provoke thy king ? 
For this are Phoebus' oracles explored, 135 

To teach the Greeks to murmur at their lord ? 
For this with falsehoods is my honor stahrd ; 



20 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Is heaven offended, and a priest profan'd, 

Because my prize, my beauteous maid, I hold, 

And heav'nly charms prefer to proffer d gold ? ho 

A maid, unmatched in manners as in face, 

Skill'd in each art, and crown d with every grace. 

Not half so dear were Clytaemnestra's charms, 

When first her blooming beauties bless'd my arms. 

Yet, if the gods demand her, let her sail ; ms 

Our cares are only for the public weal : 

Let me be deem'd the hateful cause of all, 

And suffer, rather than my people fall. 

The prize, the beauteous prize, I will resign, 

So dearly valued, and so justly mine. uh 

But since for common good I yield the fair, 

My private loss let grateful Greece repair; 

Nor unrewarded let your prince complain, 

That he alone has fought and bled in vain." 

" Insatiate king ! n ( Achilles thus replies) in 

"Fond of the pow'r, but fonder of the prize ! 
Wouldst thou the Greeks their lawful prey should yield. 
The due reward of many a well-fought field ? 
The spoils of cities raz'd, and warriors slain, 
We share with justice, as with toil we gain : igo 

But to resume whatever thy avarice craves, 
(That trick of tyrants) may be borne by slaves 
Yet if our chief for plunder only fight, 
The spoils of Ilion shall thy loss requite, 
Whene'er, by Jove's decree, our conquering pow'rs igs 
Shall humble to the dust her lofty tow'rs." 






BOOK I. 21 

Then thus the king : " Shall I my prize resign 
With tame content, and thou possessed of thine ? 
Great as thou art, and like a god in fight, 
Think not to rob me of a soldier's right. 170 

At thy demand shall I restore the maid ? 
First let the just equivalent be paid ; 
Such as a king might ask ; and let it be 
A treasure worthy her, and worthy me. 
Or grant me this, or with a monarch's claim 175 

This hand shall seize some other captive dame. 
The mighty Ajax shall his prize resign, 
Ulysses' spoils, or e'en thy own be mine. 
The man who surfers, loudly may complain ; 
And rage he may, but he shall rage in vain. iso 

But this when time requires. It now remains 
We launch a bark to plough the watery plains, 
And waft the sacrifice to Chrysa's shores, 
With chosen pilots, and with lab'ring oars. 
Soon shall the fair the sable ship ascend, iss 

And some deputed prince the charge attend. 
This Creta's king, or Ajax shall fulfil, 
Or wise Ulysses see perform 'd our will ; 
Or, if our royal pleasure shall ordain, 
Achilles' self conduct her o'er the main ; ioo 

Let fierce Achilles, dreadful in his rage, 
The god propitiate, and the pest assuage." 

At this, Pelides, frowning stern, replied : 
u tyrant, arm'd with insolence and pride ! 
Inglorious slave to interest, ever join'd 195 



22 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

With fraud, unworthy of a royal mind ! 

What generous Greek, obedient to thy word, 

Shall form an ambush, or shall lift the sword ? 

What cause have I to war at thy decree ? 

The distant Trojans never injured me: 200 

To Phthia's realms no hostile troops they led ; 

Safe in her vales my warlike coursers fed ; 

Far hence remov'd, the hoarse-resounding main, 

And walls of rocks, secure my native reign, 

Whose fruitful soil luxuriant harvests grace, 200 

Rich in her fruits, and in her martial race. 

Hither we sail'd, a voluntary throng, 

T' avenge a private, not a public wrong: 

What else to Troy tlr assembled nations draws. 

But thine, ungrateful, and thy brother's cause ? 210 

Is this the pay our blood and toils deserve. 

Disgraced and injur'd by the man we serve? 

And dar'st thou threat to snatch my prize away. 

Due to the deeds of many a dreadful day ? 

A prize as small, tyrant ! matched with thine, 2U 

As thy own actions if compared to mine. 

Thine in each conquest is the wealthy prey, 

Though mine the sweat and danger of the day. 

Some trivial present to my ships I bear, 

Or barren praises pay the wounds of war. 220 

But know, proud monarch, I'm thy slave no more: 

My fleet shall waft me to Thessalia's shore. 

Left by Achilles on the Trojan plain, 

"What spoils, what conquests, shall Atrides gain ? " 



BOOK I. 23 

To this the king : " Fly, mighty warrior ! fly, 225 

Thy aid we need not, and thy threats defy : 
There want not chiefs in such a cause to fight, 
And Jove himself shall guard a monarch's right. 
Of all the kings (the gods' distinguished care) 
To pow'r superior none such hatred bear ; 230 

Strife and debate thy restless soul employ, 
And wars and horrors are thy savage joy. 
If thou hast strength, 'twas Heav'n that strength bestow'd, 
For know, vain man ! thy valor is from God. 
Haste, launch thy vessels, fly with speed away, 235 

Eule thy own realms with arbitrary sway : 
I heed thee not, but prize at equal rate 
Thy short-liv'd friendship, and thy groundless hate. 
Go, threat thy earth-born Myrmidons ; but here 
'Tis mine to threaten, prince, and thine to fear. 240 

Know, if the god the beauteous dame demand, 
My bark shall waft her to her native land ; 
But then prepare, imperious prince ! prepare, 
Fierce as thou art, to yield thy captive fair : 
E'en in thy tent I'll seize the blooming prize, 245 

Thy lov'd Briseis, with the radiant eyes. 
Hence shalt thou prove my might, and curse the hour, 
Thou stood'st a rival of imperial pow'r ; 
And hence to all our host it shall be known 
That kings are subject to the gods alone." 250 

Achilles heard, with grief and rage oppress'd ; 
His heart swell'd high, and labor'd in his breast. 
Distracting thoughts by turns his bosom rul'd, 



24 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Now fir'd by wrath, and now by reason cooPd : 

That prompts his hand to draw the deadly sword, 

Force thro' the Greeks, and pierce their haughty lord ; 

This whispers soft, his vengeance to control, 

And calm the rising tempest of his soul. 

Just as in anguish of suspense he stay'd, 

While half unsheath'd appeared the glittering blade, mo 

Minerva swift descended from above, 

Sent by the sister and the wife of Jove 

(For both the princes claim'd her equal care) ; 

Behind she stood, and by the golden hair 

Achilles seizM ; to him alone confess'd, 

A sable cloud conceal'd her from the rest. 

He sees, and sudden to the goddess cri 

(Known by the flames that Bparkle from her ey< 

" Descends Minerva, in her guardian eare, 
A heav'nly witness of the wrongs I bear 270 

From Atreus" son ? Then let those 1 eyes that view 
The daring crime, behold the vengeance too." 

" Forbear ! w (the progeny of Jove replies) 
" To calm thy fury I forsake the skies : 
Let great Achilles, to the gods resign'd, 278 

To reason yield the empire o'er his mind. 
By awful Juno this command is giv'n ; 
The king and you are both the care of heav'n. 
The force of keen reproaches let him feel, 
But sheath, obedient, thy revenging steel. 280 

For I pronounce (and trust a heav'nly pow'r) 
Thy injured honor has its fated hour, 






BOOK L 25 

When the proud monarch shall thy arms implore, 
And bribe thy friendship with a boundless store. 
Then let revenge no longer bear the sway, 285 

Command thy passions, and the gods obey." 

To her Pelides : " With regardful ear, 
? Tis just, goddess ! I thy dictates hear. 
Hard as it is, my vengeance I suppress : 
Those who revere the gods, the gods will bless." 290 

He said, observant of the blue-ey'd maid ; 
Then in the sheath returned the shining blade. 
The goddess swift to high Olympus flies, 
And joins the sacred senate of the skies. 

Nor yet the rage his boiling breast forsook, 295 

Which thus redoubling on At rides broke : 
" monster ! mix'd of insolence and fear, 
Thou dog in forehead, but in heart a deer ! 
When wert thou known in ambush'd fights to dare, 
Or nobly face the horrid front of war ? 300 

'Tis ours, the chance of fighting fields to try, 
Thine to look on, and bid the valiant die. 
So much 'tis safer through the camp to go, 
And rob a subject, than despoil a foe. 
Scourge of thy people, violent and base ! 305 

Sent in Jove's anger on a slavish race, 
Who, lost to sense of generous freedom past, 
Are tam'd to wrongs, or this had been thy last. 
!STow by this sacred sceptre hear me swear, 
Which never more shall leaves or blossoms bear, 310 

Which, sever'd from the trunk (as I from thee) 



26 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

On the bare mountains left its parent tree ; 

This sceptre, form'd by temper' d steel to prove 

An ensign of the delegates of Jove, 

From whom the pow'r of laws and justice springs 315 

(Tremendous oath ! inviolate to kings) : 

By this I swear, when bleeding Greece again 

Shall call Achilles, she shall call in vain. 

When, flush'd with slaughter, Hector comes to spread 

The purpled shore with mountains of the dead, 320 

Then shalt thou mourn tlr affront thy madness gave, 

Forced to deplore, when impotent to save : 

Then rage in bitterness of soul, to know 

This act has made the bravesl Greek thy i 

He spoke; and furious hurl'd against the ground 
His sceptre starrM with golden studs around; 
Then sternly silent sat. With like disdain. 
The raging king returned his frowns again. 

To calm their passion with the words of a 
Slow from his seat arose the Pylian sa 330 

Experienced Nestor, in persuasion skill'd; 
Words sweet as honey from his lips distill'd : 
Two generations now had pass'd away. 
Wise by his rules, and happy by his sway; 
Two ages o'er his native realm he reign'd, 335 

And now th' example of the third remained. 
All view'd with awe the venerable man ; 
Who thus, with mild benevolence, began : 

"What shame, what woe, is this to Greece ! what joy 
To Troy's proud monarch, and the friends of Troy! 340 






BOOK L 27 

That adverse gods commit to stern debate 

The best, the bravest of the Grecian state. 

Young as you are, this youthful heat restrain, 

Nor think your Nestor's years and wisdom vain. 

A godlike race of heroes once I knew, 345 

Such as no more these aged eyes shall view ! 

Lives there a chief to match Pirithous' fame, 

Dryas the bold, or Ceneus' deathless name ; 

Theseus, endued with more than mortal might, 

Or Polyphemus, like the gods in tight ? 350 

With these of old to toils of battle bred, 

In early youth my hardy days I led ; 

Fir'd with the thirst which virtuous envy breeds, 

And smit with love of honorable deeds. 

Strongest of men, they pierced the mountain boar, 355 

Ranged the wild deserts red with monsters' gore, 

And from their hills the shaggy Centaurs tore. 

Yet these with soft persuasive arts I sway'd ; 

When Nestor spoke, they listened and obey'd. 

If in my youth, e'en these esteem'd me wise, 360 

Do you, young warriors, hear my age advice. 

Atrides, seize not on the beauteous slave ; 

That prize the Greeks by common suffrage gave : 

Nor thou, Achilles, treat our prince with pride ; 

Let kings be just, and sovereign pow'r preside. 365 

Thee, the first honors of the war adorn, 

Like gods in strength, and of a goddess born ; 

Him, awful majesty exalts above 

The pow'rs of earth, and sceptred sons of Jove. 



28 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Let both unite with well-consenting mind, 370 

So shall authority with strength be join'd. 

Leave me, king ! to calm Achilles' rage ; 

Rule thou thyself, as more advanced in age. 

Forbid it, gods ! Achilles should be lost, 

The pride of Greece, and bulwark of our host." 

This said, he ceas'd : the king of men replies ; 
"Thy years are awful, and thy words are wise. 
But that imperious, that unconquer'd soul, 
Nolaws can limit, no respect control : 
Before his pride must his superiors fall, 
His word the law. and he the lord of all ? 
Him must our hosts, our chiefs, ourself obey V 
What king can bear a rival in his sway*/ 
Grant that the gods his matchless force have giv'n ; 
Has foul reproach a privilege from heav'n ?" 

Here on the monarch's speech Achilles broke. 
And furious, thus, and Interrupting, spoke : 
"Tyrant, I well deserved thy galling chain. 
To live thy slave, and still to serve in vain, 
Should I submit to each unjust decree: 
Command thy vassals, but command not me. 
Seize on Brisei's, whom the Grecians doom'-d 
My prize of war, yet tamely see resum'd ; 
And seize secure ; no more Achilles draws 
His conquering sword in any woman's cause. 395 

The gods command me to forgive the past : 
But let this first invasion be the last : 
For know, thy blood, when next thou dar'st invade. 






BOOK L 29 

Shall stream in vengeance on my reeking blade.'' 

At this they ceas'd ; the stern debate expir'd : 400 

The chiefs in sullen majesty retired. 

Achilles with Patroclus took his way, 
Where near his tents his hollow vessels lay. 
Mean time Atrides launch' d with numerous oars 
A well-rigg'd ship for Chrysa's sacred shores : 405 

High on the deck was fair Chryseis plac'd, 
And sage Ulysses with the conduct grac'd : 
Safe in her sides the hecatomb they stow'd, 
Then, swiftly sailing, cut the liquid road. 

The host to expiate, next the king prepares, 410 

With pure lustrations and with solemn pray'rs. 
Wash'd by the briny wave, the pious train 
Are cleans'd ; and cast th' ablutions in the main. 
Along the shores whole hecatombs were laid, 
And bulls and goats to Phoebus' altars paid. 415 

The sable fumes in curling spires arise, 
And waft their grateful odors to the skies. 

The army thus in sacred rites engaged, 
Atrides still with deep resentment raged. 
To wait his will two sacred heralds stood, 420 

Talthybius and Eurybates the good. 
" Haste to the fierce Achilles' tent " (he cries), 
" Thence bear Briseis as our royal prize : 
Submit he must ; or, if they will not part, 
Our self in arms shall tear her from his heart." 425 

Th' unwilling heralds act their lord's commands ; 
Pensive they walk along the barren sands : 



30 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Arrived, the hero in his tent they find, 
With gloomy aspect, on his arm reclin'd. 
At awful distance long they silent stand, 430 

Loath to advance, or speak their hard command; 
Decent confusion ! This the godlike man 
Perceived, and thus with accent mild began: 
" With leave and honor enter our abodes, 
Ye sacred ministers of men and gods ! 433 

I know your message ; by constraint you came ; 
Not you, but your imperious lord, I blame. 
Patroclus, haste, the fair Briseis bring; 
Conduct my captive to the haughty king. 
But witness, heralds, and proclaim my tow, 440 

Witness to gods above, and men below ! 

But first, and loudest, to your prince declare, 

That lawless tyrant whose commands you bear; 

UnmovM as death Achilles shall remain, 

Though prostrate Greece should bleed at every vein : MB 

The raging chief in frantic passion lost, 

Blind to himself, and useless to his host, 

UnskillM to judge the future by the past, 

In blood and slaughter shall repent at last." 

Patroclus now tlf unwilling beauty brought; 450 

She, in soft sorrows, and in pensive thought, 
Pass'd silent, as the heralds held her hand, 
And oft look'd back, slow-moving o'er the strand. 

Not- so his loss the fierce Achilles bore : 
But sad retiring to the sounding shore, 455 

O'er the wild margin of the deep he hung, 



BOOK I. 31 

That kindred deep from whence his mother sprung ; 
There, bath'd in tears of anger and disdain, 
Thus loud lamented to the stormy main : 

"0 parent goddess! since in early bloom 4co 

Thy son must fall, by too severe a doom ; 
Sure, to so short a race of glory born, 
Great Jove in justice should this span adorn. 
Honor and fame at least the Thunderer owed ; 
And ill he pays the promise of a god, 4G5 

If yon proud monarch thus thy son defies, 
Obscures my glories, and resumes my prize." 

Far in the deep recesses of the main, 
Where aged Ocean holds his watery reign, 
The goddess-mother heard. The waves divide ; 470 

And like a mist she rose above the tide ; 
Beheld him mourning on the naked shores, 
And thus the sorrows of his soul explores : 
" Why grieves my son ? thy anguish let me share, 
Keveal the cause, and trust a parent's care." 475 

He deeply sighing said : " To tell my woe, 
Is but to mention what too well you know. 
From Thebe, sacred to Apollo's name 
(Eet ion's realm), our conqu'ring army came, 
With treasure loaded and triumphant spoils, 480 

Whose just division crown'd the soldier's toils ; 
But bright Chrysei's, heav'nly prize ! was led 
By vote selected to the general's bed. 
The priest of Phoebus sought by gifts to gain 
His beauteous daughter from the victor's chain ; 485 



32 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

The fleet he reached, and, lowly bending down, 

Held forth the sceptre and the laurel crown, 

Entreating all ; but chief implor'd for grace 

The brother-kings of Atreus' royal race : 

The gen'rous Greeks their joint consent declare, 400 

The priest to reverence, and release the fair. 

Not so Atrides : he, with wonted pride, 

The sire insulted, and his gifts denied : 

Th' insulted sire (his god's peculiar care) 

To Phoebus pray'd. and Phoebus heard the prav'r : 496 

A dreadful plague ensues; tlf avenging darts 

Incessant fly, and pierce the Grecian hearts. 

A prophet then, inspired by heaven, arose, 

And points the crime, and thence derives the woes : 

Myself the first th' assembled chiefs incline 500 

T avert the vengeance of the pow'r divine; 

Then, rising in his wrath, the monarch storm'd : 

IncensM he threatened, and his threats perform'd: 

The fair rhryseis to her sire was sent, 

With offer'd gifts to make the god relent ; 606 

But now he seiz'd Brisels' heav'nly charms. 

And of my valor's prize defrauds my arms, 

Defrauds the votes of all the Grecian train ; 

And service, faith, and justice, plead in vain. 

But, goddess ! thou thy suppliant son attend, 510 

To high Olympus' shining court ascend. 

Urge all the ties to former service ow'd. 

And sue for vengeance to the thundering god. 

Oft hast thou triumph'd in the glorious boast 






BOOK I. 33 

That thou stood'st forth, of all the ethereal host, 515 

When bold rebellion shook the realms above, 

Th' undaunted guard of cloud-compelling Jove. 

When the bright partner of his awful reign, 

The warlike maid, and monarch of the main, 

The traitor-gods, by mad ambition driv'n, 520 

Durst threat with chains th' omnipotence of heav'n. 

Then calFd by thee, the monster Titan came 

(Whom gods Briareus, men iEgeon name) ; 

Through wondering skies enormous stalk'd along; 

Not he that shakes the solid earth so strong : 525 

With giant-pride at Jove's high throne he stands, 

And brandish' cl round him all his hundred hands. 

Th' affrighted gods confessed their awful lord. 

They dropped the fetters, trembled and ador'd. 

This, goddess, this to his rememb'rance call, 530 

Embrace his knees, at his tribunal fall ; 

Conjure him far to drive the Grecian train, 

To hurl them headlong to their fleet and main, 

To heap the shores with copious death, and bring 

The Greeks to know the curse of such a king ; 535 

Let Agamemnon lift his haughty head 

O'er all his wide dominion of the dead, 

And mourn in blood, that e'er he durst disgrace 

The boldest warrior of the Grecian race." 

" Unhappy son ! " (fair Thetis thus replies, 540 

While tears celestial trickle from her eyes), 
" Why have I borne thee with a mother's throes, 
To fates averse, and nurs'd for future woes ? 



34 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

So short a space the light of heav'n to view ! 

So short a space ! and fill'd with sorrow too ! 545 

might a parent's careful wish prevail, 

Far, far from Ilion should thy vessels sail, 

And thou, from camps remote, the danger shun, 

Which now, alas ! too nearly threats my son. 

Yet (what I can) to move thy suit I'll go 550 

To great Olympus crown'd with fleecy snow. 

Meantime, secure within thy ships from far 

Behold the field, nor mingle in the war. 

The sire of gods, and all th' ethereal train, 

On the warm limits of the farthest main, 

Now mix with mortals, nor disdain to -race 

The feast of .Ethiopia's blameless race : 

Twelve days the pow'rs indulge the genial rite, 

Returning with the twelfth revolving light. 

Then will I mount the brazen dome, and move 

The high tribunal of immortal Jove." 

The goddess spoke: the rolling waves unci' 
Then down the deep she plunged, from whence she rose, 
And left him sorrowing on the lonely coast 
In wild resentment for the fair he lost. 505 

In Chrysa's port now sage Ulysses rode ; 
Beneath the deck the destined victims stow'd : 
The sails they furPd, they lash'd the mast aside, 
And dropp'd their anchors, and the pinnace tied. 
Next on the shore their hecatomb they land, 570 

Chryse'is last descending on the strand. 
Her, thus returning from the furrow'd main, 



BOOK L 35 

Ulysses led to Phoebus' sacred fane ; 

Where at his solemn altar, as the maid 

He gave to Chryses, thus the hero said : 575 

" Hail, reverend priest ! to Phoebus' awful dome 
A suppliant I from great Atrides come : 
Unransom'd here receive the spotless fair ; 
Accept the hecatomb the Greeks prepare ; 
And may thy god, who scatters darts around, 580 

Aton'd by sacrifice, desist to wound." 

At this the sire embraced the maid again, 
So sadly lost, so lately sought in vain. 
Then near the altar of the darting king, 
Disposed in rank their hecatomb they bring : 585 

With water purify their hands, and take 
The sacred offering of the salted cake ; 
While thus with arms devoutly raised in air, 
And solemn voice, the priest directs his prayer : 

" God of the silver bow, thy ear incline, 590 

Whose power encircles Cilia the divine ; 
Whose sacred eye thy Tenedos surveys, 
And gilds fair Chrysa with distinguished rays ! 
If, fir'd to vengeance at thy priest's request. 
Thy direful darts inflict the raging pest ; 595 

Once more attend ! avert the wasteful woe. 
And smile propitious, and unbend thy bow." 

So Chryses pray'd, Apollo heard his prayer : 
And now the Greeks their hecatomb prepare ; 
Between their horns the salted barley threw, 600 

And with their heads to heaven the victims slew : 



36 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

The limbs they sever from th' inclosing hide ; 

The thighs, selected to the gods, divide : 

On these, in double cauls involved with art. 

The choicest morsels lay from every part. co5 

The priest himself before his altar stands, 

And burns the offering with his holy hands, 

Pours the black wine, and sees the flame aspire ; 

The youths with instruments surround the fire : 

The thighs thus sacrificed, and entrails drest, cio 

Th' assistants part, transfix, and roast the real : 

Then spread the tables, the repast prepare, 

Each takes his seat, and each receives his share. 

When now the rage of hunger was repressed, 
With pure libations they conclude the feast ; us 

The youths with wine the copious goblets crown'd, 
And, pleas'd, dispense the flowing bowls around. 
With hymns divine the joyous banquet ends. 
The Paeans lengthen^ till the sun descends: 
The Greeks, restored, the grateful notes prolong: 
Apollo listens, and approves the song. 

Twas night; the chiefs beside their vessel lie. 
Till rosy morn had purpled o'er the sky ■ 
Then launch, and hoist the mast ; indulgent gales 
Supplied by Phoebus, fill the swelling sails: 
The milk-white canvas bellying as they blow. 
The parted ocean foams and roars below : 
Above the bounding billows swift they flew, 
Till now the Grecian camp appear'd in view. 
Far on the beach they haul their barks to land no 



BOOK I. 37 

(The crooked keel divides the yellow sand), 
Then part, where stretch'd along the winding bay 
The ships and tents in mingled prospect lay. 

But, raging still, amidst his navy sat 
The stern Achilles, steadfast in his hate ; 635 

Nor mix'd in combat, nor in council join'd ; 
But Avasting cares lay heavy on his mind : 
In his black thoughts revenge and slaughter roll, 
And scenes of blood rise dreadful in his soul. 

Twelve days were past, and now the dawning light 640 
The gods had summon' d to th' Olympian height: 
Jove, first ascending from the watery bowers, 
Leads the long order of ethereal powers. 
When like the morning mist, in early day, 
Eose from the flood the daughter of the sea ; 645 

And to the seats divine her flight addressed. 
There, far apart, and high above the rest, 
The Thunderer sat ; where old Olympus shrouds 
His hundred heads in heaven, and props the clouds. 
Suppliant the goddess stood : one hand she placed 650 
Beneath his beard, and one his knees embraced. 
" If e'er, father of the gods ! " she said, 
" My words could please thee, or my actions aid, 
Some marks of honor on my son bestow, 
And pay in glory what in life you owe. 655 

Fame is at least by heavenly promise due 
To life so short, and now dishonored too. 
Avenge this wrong, oh ever just and wise ! 
Let Greece be humbled, and the Trojans rise ; 



38 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Till the proud king, and all th 5 Achaian race, 660 

Shall heap with honors him they now disgrace.*' 

Thus Thetis spoke, but Jove in silence held 
The sacred councils of his breast concealM. 
Not so repuls'd, the goddess closer press" d. 
Still grasp'd his knees, and urged the dear request, 005 
" sire of gods and men ! thy suppliant hear, 
Refuse, or grant; for what lias Jove to fear ? 
Or, oh ! declare, of all the powers above. 
Is wretched Thetis least the care of Jove ? " 

She said, and sighing thus the god replies, cto 

Who rolls the thunder o'er the vaulted ski< 

" What hast thou ask'd? Ah why should Jove engage 
In foreign contests, and domestic rage. 
The gods' complaints, and Juno's fierce alarms, 
While I, too partial, aid the Trojan arms ? 878 

Go, lest the haughty partner of my sway 
With jealous eyes thy close access survey ; 
But part in peace, secure thy prayer is sped: 
Witness the sacred honors of our head. 
The nod that ratifies the will divine, 680 

The faithful, nVd, irrevocable sign ; 
This seals thy suit, and this fulfils thy vows — M 
He spoke, and awful bends his sable brows ; 
Shakes his ambrosial curls, and gives the nod; 
The stamp of fate, and sanction of the god : G85 

High heaven with trembling the dread signal took, 
And all Olympus to the centre shook. 

Swift to the seas profound the goddess flies, 






BOOK I. 39 

Jove to his starry mansion in the skies. 

The shining synod of th' immortals wait 690 

The coming god, and from their thrones of state 

Arising silent, rapt in holy fear, 

Before the majesty of heaven appear. 

Trembling they stand, while Jove assumes the throne, 

All, but the god's imperious queen alone : 695 

Late had she viewed the silver-footed dame, 

And all her passions kindled into flame. 

" Say, artful manager of heaven" (she cries), 

" Who now partakes the secrets of the skies ? 

Thy Juno knows not the decrees of fate, 700 

In vain the partner of imperial state. 

What fav'rite goddess then those cares divides, 

Which Jove in prudence from his consort hides ? v 

To this the Thunderer : " Seek not thou to find 
The sacred counsels of almighty mind : 705 

Involved in darkness lies the great decree, 
Nor can the depths of fate be pierced by thee. 
What fits thy knowledge, thou the first shalt know : 
The first of gods above and men below : 
But thou, nor they, shall search the thoughts that roll 710 
Deep in the close recesses of my soul." 

Full on the sire, the goddess of the skies 
Koll'd the large orbs of her majestic eyes, 
And thus returned : " Austere Saturnius, say, 
From whence this wrath, or who controls thy sway ? 715 
Thy boundless will, for me, remains in force, 
And all thy counsels take the destined course. 



40 THE ILIAD OF IlOMEli. 

But 'tis for Greece I fear : for late was seen 

In close consult the silver-footed queen. 

Jove to his Thetis nothing could deny, 720 

Nor was the signal vain that shook the sky. 

What fatal favor has the goddess won, 

To grace her fierce inexorable son ? 

Perhaps in Grecian blood to drench the plain. 

And glut his vengeance with my people slain."' 726 

Then thus the god : " Oh restless fate of pride. 
That strives to learn what heaven resolves to hide ; 
Vain is the search, presumptuous and abhorr'd, 
Anxious to thee, and odious to thy lord. 
Let this suffice: th' immutable decree 
No force can shake: what is, that aught to be. 
Goddess submit, nor dare our will withstand, 
But dread the power of this avenging hand ; 
Th' united strength of all the gods above 
In vain resists th' omnipotence of dove.'" 735 

The Thunderer spoke, nor durst the queen reply; 
A reverend horror silenced all the sky. 
The feast disturbed, with Borrow Vulcan saw 
His mother menaced, and the gods in awe; 
Peace at his heart, and pleasure his design, 740 

Thus interpos'd the architect divine : 
" The wretched quarrels of the mortal state 
Are far unworthy, gods ! of your debate : 
Let men their days in senseless strife employ, 
We, in eternal peace, and constant joy. 745 

Thou, goddess-mother, with our sire comply, 



BOOK I. 41 

Nor break the sacred union of the sky : 

Lest, rous'd to rage, he shake the blest abodes, 

Launch the red lightning, and dethrone the gods. 

If you submit, the Thunderer stands appeas'd ; 750 

The gracious power is willing to be pleas'd." 

Thus Vulcan spoke ; and, rising with a bound, 
The double bowl with sparkling nectar crown'd, 
Which held to Juno in a cheerful way, 
" Goddess," (he cried), " be patient and obey. 755 

Dear as you are, if Jove his arm extend, 
I can but grieve, unable to defend. 
What god so daring in your aid to move, 
Or lift his hand against the force of Jove ? 
Once in your cause I felt his matchless might, tgo 

HurFd headlong downward from th' etherial height ; 
Toss'd all the day in rapid circles round ; 
Nor, till the sun descended, touch'd the ground : 
Breathless I fell, in giddy motion lost ; 
The Sinthians raised me on the Lemnian coast." 70.3 

He said, and to her hands the goblet heav'd, 
Which, with a smile, the white-arni'd queen received. 
Then to the rest he filPd ; and, in his turn, 
Each to his lips applied the nectar'd urn. 
Vulcan with awkward grace his office plies, 770 

And unextinguish'd laughter shakes the skies. 

Thus the blest gods the genial day prolong, 
In feasts ambrosial, and celestial song. 
Apollo tun'd the lyre ; the muses round 
With voice alternate aid the silver sound. 775 



42 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Meantime the radiant sun, to mortal sight 

Descending swift, rolPd down the rapid light. 

Then to their starry domes the gods depart, 

The shining monuments of Vulcan's art : 

Jove on his couch reclin'd his awful head, tso 

And Juno slumber'd on the golden bed. 



ARGUMENT. 



BOOKS II.-V. 



The contest between the opposing nations is renewed. Zens, in 
accordance with the request of Thetis, and that the Greeks may 
realize the loss of Achilles, persuades Agamemnon to move against 
Troy, and, after the famous catalogue of forces, princes, and prov- 
inces, the rival armies are drawn up once more in opposition. It is 
decided, however, to leave the result of the war to a single combat 
between Menelaus and Paris. In this the latter is overcome, but 
saved from death by Thetis who, snatching him away in a cloud, 
conveys him to his chamber and calls Helen to attend him. The 
truce is now broken and the fighting becomes general ; such being 
the will of the Gods in council, Thetis, Apollo, and Mars actively 
assisting the Trojans, while Juno and Minerva engage upon the 
side of the Greeks. Among the former, Sarpedon, JEneas, and 
Hector excel all others in deeds of bravery, Agamemnon distin- 
guishes himself in all the parts of a good general, Nestor is cele- 
brated for his military discipline, and Diomed performs prodigies 
of valor only equalled by the great Achilles himself. 

The twenty-third day continues through all four books, the scene 
being now the Grecian camp, now the seashore or the Trojan field, 
now the city itself. 



THE ARGUMENT. 

THE EPISODES OF GLAUCUS AND DIOMED, AND OF EUBCTOB AND 
ANDROMACHE. 

The gods having left the field, the ( Grecians prevail. Helenas, the 
chief angai of Troy, oommandfl Hector to return to the city, in order 
to appoint a solemn procession of the queen and the Trojan matrons 

to the temple Of Minerva, to entreat her to remove Diomed from the 

fight. The battle relaxing daring the absence of Hector, G-laacos and 
Diomed have an interview between the two armies; where, coming 
to the knowledge of the friendship and hospitality past between their 

ancestors, they make exchange of their arms. Hector, having per- 
formed the orders of Helenas, prevailed upon Paris to retorn to the 
battle, and taken a tender leave of his wife Andromache, hastens 

again to the held. 

The scene is first in the field of battle, between the river Blmoifl 

and Scamander, and theii changes to Troy. 



THE ILIAD. 



BOOK VI. 



Now heaven forsakes the fight ; th' immortals yield 
To human force and human skill the field : 
Dark showers of javelins fly from foes to foes ; 
Now here, now there, the tide of combat flows ; 
While Troy's fain'd streams, that bound the deathful 
plain, 5 

On either side run purple to the main. 

Great Ajax first to conquest led the way. 
Broke the thick ranks, and turn'd the doubtful day. 
The Thracian Acamas his falchion found, 
And hew'd th J enormous giant to the ground ; 10 

His thundering arm a deadly stroke impressed 
Where the black horse-hair nodded o'er his crest : 
Fix'd in his front the brazen weapon lies, 
And seals in endless shades his swimming eyes. 

Next Teuthras' son distain'd the sands with blood, 15 
Axylus, hospitable, rich, and good : 
In fair Arisba's walls (his native place) 
He held his seat ; a friend to human race. 
Fast by the road, his ever-open door 

Obliged the wealthy, and reliev'd the poor. 20 

45 



46 THE ILIAD OF IIOMEli. 

To stern Tydides now he falls a prey. 
No friend to guard him in the dreadful day ! 
Breathless the good man fell, and by his side 
His faithful servant, old Calesius, died. 

By great Euryalus was Dresus slain, 25 

And next he laid Opheltius on the plain. 
Two twins were near, bold, beautiful, and young, 
From a fair Naiad and Bucolion sprung : 
(Laomedon's white flocks Bucolion fed, 
That monarch's first-born by a foreign bed ; 30 

In secret woods he won the Naiad's grace, 
And two fair infants crown'd his strong embrace:) 
Here dead they lay in all their youthful charms; 
The ruthless victor strippM their shining arms. 

Astyalus by Polypoetes fell; 35 

Ulysses' spear Pidytes sent to hell; 
By Teucer's shaft brave Aretaon bled. 
And Nestor's son laid stern Ablerus dead; 
Great Agamemnon, leader of the brave. 
The mortal wound of rich Hiatus gave, 40 

AVho held in Pedasus his proud abode, 
And till'd the banks where silver Satnio fiow'd. 
Melanthius by Eurypylus was slain; 
And Phylacus from Leitus flies in vain. 

Unbless'd Adrastus next at mercy lies 4.-» 

Beneath the Spartan spear, a living prize. 
Scar'd with the din and tumult of the fight, 
His headlong steeds, precipitate in flight, 
Bush'd on a tamarisk's strong trunk, and broke 



BOOK VI. 47 

The shattered chariot from the crooked yoke : 50 

Wide o'er the field, resistless as the wind, 

For Troy they fly, and leave their lord behind. 

Prone on his face he sinks beside the wheel : 

Atrides o'er him shakes his vengeful steel ; 

The fallen chief in suppliant posture pressed 55 

The victor's knees, and thus his prayer address'd : 

" Dh spare my youth, and for the life I owe 
Large gifts of price my father shall bestow : 
When fame shall tell, that not in battle slain 
Thy hollow ships his captive son detain, 60 

Rich heaps of brass shall in thy tent be told, 
And steel well-temper 'd, and persuasive gold." 

He said : compassion touched the hero's heart ; 
He stood suspended with the lifted dart : 
As pity pleaded for his vanquished prize, 65 

Stern Agamemnon swift to vengeance flies, 
And furious thus : " Oh impotent of mind ! 
Shall these, shall these, Atrides' mercy find ? 
Well hast thou known proud Troy's perfidious land, 
And well her natives merit at thy hand ! 70 

Not one of all the race, nor sex, nor age, 
Shall save a Trojan from our boundless rage: 
Ilion shall perish whole, and bury all ; 
Her babes, her infants at the breast, shall fall. 
A dreadful lesson of exampled fate, 75 

To warn the nations, and to curb the great." 

The monarch spoke ; the words, with warmth address'd, 
To rigid justice steel'd his brother's breast. 



48 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Fierce from his knees the hapless chief he thrust ; 

The monarch's javelin stretch' d him in the dust. so 

Then, pressing with his foot his panting heart. 

Forth from the slain he tugg'd the reeking dart. 

Old Nestor saw, and rous'd the warriors' rage ; 

"Thus, heroes ! thus the vigorous combat wage! 

No son of Mars descend, for servile gains, 85 

To touch the booty, while a foe remains. 

Behold yon glittering host, your future spoil ! 

Fi-rst gain the conquest, then reward the toil." 

And now had Greece eternal fame acquired, 
And frighted Troy within her walls retir'dj 90 

Had not sage Helenus her state redress'd, 
Taught by the gods that mov'd his sacred breast : 
Where Hector stood, with great JSneas join'd, 
The seer reveal'd the counsels of his mind : 

"Ye generous chiefs! on whom tlf immortals lay 
The cares and glories of this doubtful da v. 
On whom your aids, your country's hopes depend, 
Wise to consult, and active to defend ! 
Here, at our gates, your brave efforts unite, 
Turn back the routed, and forbid the flight; 100 

Ere yet their wives' soft arms the cowards gain. 
The sport and insult of the hostile train. 
When your commands have hearten'd every band. 
Ourselves, here fix'd, will make the dang'rous stand; 
Press'd as we are, and sore of former fight, 105 

These straits demand our last remains of might, 
Meanwhile, thou, Hector, to the town retire, 



BOOK VI. 49 

And teach our mother what the gods require : 

Direct the queen to lead th' assembled train 

Of Troy's chief matrons to Minerva's fane ; no 

Unbar the sacred gates, and seek the power 

With offered vows, in Ilion's topmost tower. 

The largest mantle her rich wardrobes hold, 

Most priz'd for art, and labored o'er with gold, 

Before the goddess' honor'd knees be spread ; 115 

And twelve young heifers to her altars led. 

If so the power, aton'd by fervent prayer, 

Our wives, our infants, and our city spare, 

And far avert Tydides' wasteful ire, 

That mows whole troops, and makes all Troy retire. 120 

Not thus Achilles taught our hosts to dread, 

Sprung though he was from more than mortal bed ; 

Not thus resistless rul'd the stream of fight, 

In rage unbounded, and unmatched in might." 

Hector obedient heard ; and, with a bound, 125 

Leap'd from his trembling chariot to the ground ; 
Through all his host, inspiring force, he flies, 
And bids the thunder of the battle rise. 
With rage recruited the bold Trojans glow, 
And turn the tide of conflict on the foe : 130 

Fierce in the front he shakes two dazzling spears ; 
All Greece recedes, and midst her triumph fears : 
Some god, they thought, who rul'd the fate of wars, 
Shot down avenging, from the vault of stars. 

Then thus, aloud : " Ye dauntless Dardans, hear ! 135 
And you whom distant nations send to war ; 



50 THE ILIAD OF IIOMER. 

Be mindful of the strength your fathers bore ; 

Be still yourselves, and Hector asks no more. 

One hour demands me in the Trojan Avail, 

To bid our altars flame, and victims fall : ho 

Nor shall, I trust, the matrons' holy train, 

And reverend elders, seek the gods in vain." 

This said, with ample strides the hero pass'd ; 
The shield's large orb behind his shoulder cast, 
His neck o'ershading, to his ankle hung; 14.-, 

And as he march'd the brazen buckler rung. 

Now paus'd the battle, (godlike Hector gone), 
When daring G-laucus and great Tydeus' son 
Between both armies met j the chiefs from far 
Observ'd each other, and had mark'd for war. 150 

Near as they drew. Tydides thus began : 

"What art tlion. boldest of the race of man? 

Our eyes, till now, that aspect ne'er beheld. 

Where fame is reap'd amid th' embattled held; 

Yet far before the troops thou dav'st appear, 155 

And meet a lance the fiercest heroes tear. 

Unhappy they, and born of luckless sn 

Who tempt our Bury when Minerva lire- ! 

But if from heaven, celestial, thou descend, 

Know, with immortals we no more contend. ir,o 

Not long Lycurgus view'd the golden light, 

That daring man who mix'd with gods in fight; 

Bacchus, and Bacchus' votaries, he drove 

With brandished steel from Nyssa\s sacred grove ; 

Their consecrated spears lay scattered round, 165 



BOOK VI. 51 

With curling vines and twisted ivy bound ; 

While Bacchus headlong sought the briny flood, 

And Thetis' arms received the trembling god. 

Nor faiPd the crime th/ immortals' wrath to move, 

(Th' immortals bless'd with endless ease above) ; 170 

Deprived of sight, by their avenging doom, 

Cheerless he breathed, and wander'd in the gloom : 

Then sunk unpitied to the dire abodes, 

A wretch accurs'd, and hated by the gods ! 

I brave not heaven ; but if the fruits of earth 175 

Sustain thy life, and human be thy birth, 

Bold as thou art, too prodigal of breath, 

Approach, and enter the dark gates of death." 

" What, or from whence I am, or who my sire," 
(Eepliecl the chief), "can Tycleus' son inquire? iso 

Like leaves on trees the race of man is found, 
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground : 
Another race the following spring supplies, 
They fall successive, and successive rise ; 
So generations in their course decay, 185 

So flourish these, when those are past away. 
But if thou still persist to search my birth, 
Then hear a tale that fills the spacious earth : 

A city stands on Argos' utmost bound ; 
(Argos the fair, for warlike steeds renowmd) ; 190 

JEolian Sisyphus, with wisdom bless'd, 
In ancient time the happy walls possessed, 
Then call'd Ephyre : Glaucus was his son ; 
Great Glaucus, father of Bellerophon, 



52 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Who o'er the sons of men in beauty shinM. ik 

Lov'd for that valor which preserves mankind. 
Then mighty Proetus Argos' sceptre sway'd, 
Whose hard commands Bellerophon obey'd. 
With direful jealousy the monarch rag'd, 
And the brave prince in numerous toils engagM. 200 

For him, Antea burn'd with lawless flame, 
And strove to tempt him from the paths of fame : 
In vain she tempted the relentless youth, 
Endued with wisdom, sacred fear, and truth. 
Fir'd at his scorn, the queen to Proetus fled, 
And begg*d revenge for her insulted bed: 
Incens'd he heard, resolving on his fate ; 
But hospitable laws restrained his hate: 
To Lycia the devoted youth he sent, 
With tablets BeaPd, that told his dire intent 210 

Now, blessM by every power who guards the good, 
The ehief arriv'd at Xanlhus' silver Hood : 
There Lycia's monarch paid him honors due; 
Nine days he feasted, and nine bulls he slew. 
But when the tenth bright morning orient glowed, 915 
The faithful youth his monarch's mandate shew'd : 
The fata\ tablets, till that instant seal'd. 
The deathful secret to the king reveal'd. 
First, dire Chimsera's conquest was enjoin'd ; 
A mingled monster, of no mortal kind ; 220 

Behind, a dragon's fiery tail was spread ; 
A goat's rough body bore a lion's head ; 
, Her pitchy nostrils flaky flames expire ; 



BOOK VI. 53 

Her gaping throat emits infernal fire. 

This pest he slaughtered ; (for he read the skies, 225 
And trusted heaven's informing prodigies) ; 
Then met in arms the Solynraean crew, 
(Fiercest of men), and those the warrior slew. 
Next the bold Amazons' whole force defied ; 
And conquered still, for heaven was on his side. 230 

Nor ended here his toils : his Lycian foes, 
At his return, a treacherous ambush rose, 
With levelled spears along the winding shore : 
There fell they breathless, and return'd no more. 

At length the monarch with repentant grief 235 

Confessed the gods, and god-descended chief ; 
His daughter gave, the stranger to detain, 
With half the honors of his ample reign. 
The Lycians grant a chosen space of ground, 
With woods, with vineyards, and with harvests crown'd. 
There long the chief his happy lot possessed, 241 

With two brave sons and one fair daughter bless'd : 
(Fair e'en in heavenly eyes ; her fruitful love 
Crown' d with Sarpedon's birth th' embrace of Jove.) 
But when at last, distracted in his mind, 245 

Forsook by heaven, forsaking human kind, 
Wide o'er th' Aleian field he chose to stray, 
A long, forlorn, uncomfortable way ! 
Woes heap'd on woes consum'd his wasted heart ; 
His beauteous daughter fell by Phoebe's dart ; 250 

His eldest-born by raging Mars was slain, 
In combat on the Solymaean plain. 



54 



THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 



255 



200 



205 



Hippolochus survived ; from him I came, 
The honor' d author of my birth and name ; 
By his decree I sought the Trojan town, 
By his instructions learn to will renown ; 
To stand the first in worth as in command, 
To add new honors to my native land ; 
Before my eyes my mighty sires to place, 
And emulate the glories of our race." 

He spoke, and transport iill'd Tydides 5 heart ; 
In earth the generous warrior iix'd his dart. 
Then friendly, thus, the Lycian prince address'd : 
" Welcome, my brave hereditary gu< 
Tims ever let us meel with kind embrace, 
Nor stain the sacred friendship of our race. 
Know, chief, our grandsires have been guests of old, 
(Eneus the strong, Bellerophon the hold ; 
Our ancient scat his honor'd presence grac'd, 
Where twenty days in genial rites he pass'd. 
The parting heroes mutual presents left; 
A golden goblet was thy grandsire's gift; 
(Eneus a belt of matchless work bestow'd. 
That rich with Tyrian dye refulgent glow'd. 
(This from his pledge I learn'd, which, safely stor'd 275 
Among my treasures, still adorns my board : 
For Tydeus left me young, when Thebe's wall 
Beheld the sons of (J recce untimely fall.) 
Mindful of this, in friendship let us join ; 
If heaven our steps to foreign lands incline, 
My guest in Argos thou, and I in Lycia thine. 



270 



280 



BOOK VI. 55 

Enough of Trojans to this lance shall yield, 

In the full harvest of yon ample Seld , 

Enough of Greeks shall dye thy spear with gore ; 

But thou and Diomed be foes no more. 285 

Now change we arms, and prove to either host 

We guard the friendship of the line we boast." 

Thus having said, the gallant chiefs alight, 
Their hands they join, their mutual faith they plight ; 
Brave Glaucus then each narrow thought resigned ; '290 
(Jove warm'd his bosom and enlarged his mind) ; 
For Diomed's brass arms, of mean device, 
For which nine oxen paid, (a vulgar price) ; 
He gave his own, of gold divinely wrought ; 
A hundred beeves the shining purchase bought. 295 

Meantime the guardian of the Trojan state, 
Great Hector, entered at the Scaean gate. 
Beneath the beech-trees' consecrated shades, 
The Trojan matrons and the Trojan maids 
Around him flock'd, all pressed with pious care 300 

For husbands, brothers, sons, engag'd in war. 
He bids the train in long procession go, 
And seek the gods, t' avert th' impending woe. 
And now to Priam's stately courts he came, 
Kais'd on arch'd columns of stupendous frame ; 305 

O'er these a range of marble structure runs ; 
The rich pavilions of his fifty sons, 
In fifty chambers lodged : and rooms of state 
Oppos'd to those, where Priam's daughters sat : 
Twelve domes for them and their lov'd spouses shone, 310 



56 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Of equal beauty, and of polish' d stone. 
Hither great Hector pass'd, nor pass'd unseen 
Of royal Hecuba, his mother queen. 
(With her Laodice, whose beauteous face 
Surpass'd the nymphs of Troy's illustrious race.) 315 
Long in a strict embrace she held her son, 
And press'd his hand, and tender thus begun 
"0 Hector ! say, what great occasion calls 
My son from fight, when Greece surrounds our walls ? 
Com'st thou to supplicate th' almighty power, 320 

With lifted hands from [lion's lofty tower ? 
Stay, till 1 bring the cup with Bacchus crown'd, 
In Jove's high name, to sprinkle on the ground, 
And pay due vows to all the gods around. 
Then with a plenteous draught refresh thy soul. 325 

And draw new spirits from the generous bowl ; 
Spent as thou art with long laborious fight, 
The brave defender of thy country's right." 

"Far hence be Bacchus 5 gifts/ 3 (the chief rejohfd); 

"Inflaming wine, pernicious to mankind, 330 

Unnerves the limbs, and dulls the noble mind. 
Let chiefs abstain, and spare the sacred juice, 
To sprinkle to the gods, its better use. 
By me that holy office were profan'd ; 
111 fits it me, with human -ore distain'd. 
To the pure skies these horrid hands to raise, 
Or offer heaven's great sire polluted praise. 
You, with your matrons, go, a spotless train ! 
And burn rich odors in Minerva's fane. 



BOOK VI. ^ 57 

The largest mantle your full wardrobes hold, 340 

Most prized for art, and labor'd o'er with gold, 
Before the goddess' honored knees be spread, 
And twelve young heifers to her altar led. 
So may the power, aton'd by fervent prayer, 
Our wives, our infants, and our city Spare, 345 

And far avert Tydides' wasteful ire, 
Who mows whole troops, and makes all Troy retire. 
Be this, mother, your religious care ; 
I go to rouse soft Paris to the war ; 

If yet, not lost to all the sense of shame, 350 

The recreant warrior hear the voice of fame. 
Oh would kind earth the hateful wretch embrace, 
That pest of Troy, that ruin of our race ! 
Deep to the dark abyss might he descend, 
Troy yet should flourish, and my sorrows end." 355 

This heard, she gave command ; and summon'd came 
Each noble matron, and illustrious dame. 
The Phrygian queen to her rich wardrobe went, 
Where treasured odors breath'd a costly scent. 
There lay the vestures of no vulgar art, 060 

Sidonian maids embroider d every part, 
Whom from soft Sidon youthful Paris bore, 
With Helen touching on the Tyrian shore. 
Here as the queen revolv'd with careful eyes 
The various textures and the various dyes, 365 

She chose a veil that shone superior far, 
And glow'd refulgent as the morning star. 
Herself with this the long procession leads ; 



58 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

The train majestically slow proceeds. 

Soon as to Ilion's topmost tower they come, ' 370 

And awful reach the high Palladian dome, 

Antenor's consort, fair Theano, waits 

As Pallas' priestess, and unbars the gates. 

With hands uplifted, and imploring eyes, 

They fill the dome with supplicating cries. 375 

The priestess then the shining veil displays. 

Placed on Minerva's knees, and thus she prays : 

"Oh awful goddess ! ever-dreadful maid. 
Troy's strong defence, unconquer'd Pallas, aid! 
Break thou Tydides' spear, and let him fall 380 

Prone on the dust before the Trojan wall. 
So twelve young heifers, guiltless of the y< >ke, 
Shall fill thy temple with a grateful smoke. 
But thou, aton'd by penitence and prayer, 
Ourselves, our infants, and our city spare! " 385 

So pray'd the priestess in her holy fane ; 
So vow'd the matrons, but they vow'd in vain. 

While these appear before the power with pra\ 
Hector to Paris' lofty dome repairs. 

Himself the mansion rais'd, from every part 390 

Assembling architects of matchless art. 
Near Priam's court and Hector's palace stands 
The pompous structure, and the town commands. 
A spear the hero bore of wondrous strength, 
Of full ten cubits was the lance's length; 395 

The steely point with golden ringlets joiifd. 
Before him brandish'd, at each motion shin'd. 



BOOK VI. 59 

Thus entering, in the glittering rooms he found 

His brother-chief, whose useless arms lay round, 

His eyes delighting with their splendid show, -too 

Brightening the shield, and polishing the bow. 

Beside him Helen with her virgins stands, 

Guides their rich labors, and instructs their hands. 

Him thus inactive, with an ardent look 
The prince beheld, and high resenting spoke : 405 

" Thy hate to Troy is this the time to shew ? 
(Oh wretch ill-fated, and thy country's foe !) 
Paris and Greece against us both conspire, 
Thy close resentment, and their vengeful ire. 
For thee great Ilion's guardian heroes fall, 410 

Till heaps of dead alone defend her wall ; 
For thee the soldier bleeds, the matron mourns, 
And wasteful war in all its fury burns. 
Ungrateful man ! deserves not this thy care, 
Our troops to hearten, and our toils to share ? 415 

Rise, or behold the conquering flames ascend, 
And all the Phrygian glories at an end." 

" Brother, 'tis just," (replied the beauteous youth), 
" Thy free remonstrance proves thy worth and truth : 
Yet charge my absence less, oh generous chief ! 420 

On hate to Troy, than conscious shame and grief. 
Here, hid from human eyes, thy brother sat, 
And mourn'd in secret his and Ilion's fate. 
'Tis now enough : now glory spreads her charms, 
And beauteous Helen calls her chief to arms. 425 

Conquest to-day my happier sword may bless, 



60 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

'Tis man's to fight, but heaven's to give success. 
But while I arm, contain thy ardent mind ; 
Or go, and Paris shall not lag behind." 

He said, nor answer' d Priam's warlike son ; 430 

When Helen thus with lowly grace begun : 

" Oh generous brother ! if the guilty dame 
That caus'd these woes deserves a sister's name ! 
Would heaven, ere all these dreadful deeds were done. 
The day that shew'd me to the golden sun 435 

Had seen my death ! Why did not whirlwinds bear 
The fatal infant to the fowls of air ? 
Why sunk I not beneath the whelming tide, 
And midst the roarings of the waters died ? 
Heaven fill'd up all my ills, and I accurs'd 440 

Bore all, and Paris of those ills the worst. 
Helen at least a braver spouse mighl claim, 
Warm'd with some virtue, some regard of fame ! 
Now, tired with toils, thy fainting limbs recline, 
With toils sustain'd for Paris' sake and mine: 445 

The gods have link'd our miserable doom. 

Our present woe and infamy to come : 

Wide shall it spread, and last through ages long, 

Example sad! and theme of future son-." 

The chief replied : k - This time forbids to rest: 450 

The Trojan bands, by hostile fury press'd, 
Demand their Hector, and his arm require ; 
The combat urges, and my soul's on lire. 
Urge thou thy knight to march where glory calls, 
And timely join me, ere I leave the walls. 455 



BOOK VI. 61 

Ere yet I mingle in the direful fray, 

My wife, my infant, claim a moment's stay : 

This day (perhaps the last that sees me here) 

Demands a parting word, a tender tear : 

This day some god, who hates our Trojan land, 460 

May vanquish Hector by a Grecian hand."' 

He said, and pass'd with sad presaging heart 
To seek his spouse, his soul's far dearer part ; 
At home he sought her, but he sought in vain : 
She, with one maid of all her menial train, 465 

Had thence retir'd ; and, with her second joy, 
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy, 
Pensive she stood on Ilion's towery height, 
Beheld the war, and sicken'd at the sight ; 
There her sad eyes in vain her lord explore, 470 

Or weep the wounds her bleeding country bore. 

But he who found not whom his soul desir'd, 
Whose virtue charm'd him as her beauty fir'd, 
Stood in the gates, and ask'd what way she bent 
Her parting steps ? If to the fane she went, 475 

Where late the mourning matrons made resort ; 
Or sought her sisters in the Trojan court ? 
"Not to the court," (replied th' attendant train), 
" Nor, mix'd with matrons, to Minerva's fane : 
To Ilion's steepy tower she bent her way, 480 

To mark the fortunes of the doubtful day. 
Troy fled, she heard, before the Grecian sword : 
She heard, and trembled for her distant lord ; 
Distracted with surprise, she seem'd to fly, 



62 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Fear on her cheek, and sorrow in her eye. 485 

The nurse attended with her infant boy, 
The young Astyanax, the hope of Troy." 

Hector, this heard, return'd without delay ; 
Swift through the town he trod his former way. 
Through streets of palaces and walks of state ; 480 

And met the mourner at the Scaean gate. 
With haste to meet him sprang the joyful fair, 
His blameless wife, Eetion's wealthy heir 
(Cicilian Thebe great Eetion sway'd. 
And Hippoplacus' wide-extended shade) : 406 

The nurse stood near, in whose embraces press'd. 
His only hope hung smiling at her breast. 
Whom each soft charm and early grace adorn, 
Fair as the new-born star thai gilds the morn. 
To this lovM infant Hector gave the name 500 

Scamandrius, from Scamander's honor'd stream: 

Astyanax the Trojans call'd the boy, 

From his great father, the defence of Troy. 

Silent the warrior smil'd, and, pleas'd, resigned 

To tender passions all his mighty mind : 503 

His beauteous princess cast a mournful look, 

Hung on his hand, and then dejected spoke; 

Her bosom labor'd with a boding sigh. 

And the big tear stood trembling in her eye. 

"Too daring prince ! ah whither dost thou run? 510 
Ah too forgetful of thy wife and son ! 
And think'st thou not how wretched we shall be, 
A widow I, a helpless orphan he ! 



BOOK VI. 68 

For sure such courage length of life denies, 

And thou must fall, thy virtue's sacrifice. 515 

Greece in her single heroes strove in vain ; 

Now hosts oppose thee, and thou must be slain ! 

Oh grant me, gods ! ere Hector meets his doom, 

All I can ask of heaven, an early tomb ! 

So shall my days in one sad tenor run, 520 

And end with sorrows as they first begun. 

No parent now remains, my griefs to share, 

No father's aid, no mother's tender care. 

The fierce Achilles wrapt our walls in fire, 

Laid Thebe waste, and slew my warlike sire ! 525 

His fate compassion in the victor bred ; 

Stern as he was, he yet rever'cl the dead, 

His radiant arms preserved from hostile spoil, 

And laid him decent on the funeral pile ; 

Then rais'd a mountain where his bones were burn'd ; 530 

The mountain nymphs the rural tomb adorn'd ; 

Jove's sylvan daughters bade their elms bestow 

A barren shade, and in his honor grow. 

By the same arm my seven brave brothers fell ; 
In one sad day beheld the gates of hell ; 535 

While the fat herds and snowy flocks they fed, 
Amid their fields the hapless heroes bled ! 
My mother liv'd to bear the victor s bands, 
The queen of Hippoplacia's sylvan lands : 
Redeemed too late, she scarce beheld again 540 

Her pleasing empire and her native plain, 
When, ah ! oppressed by life-consuming woe, 



64 THE ILIAD OF HOMEll. 

She fell a victim to Diana's bow. 

Yet while my Hector still survives, I see 
My father, mother, brethren, all, in thee. 545 

Alas ! my parents, brothers, kindred, all, 
Once more will perish if my Hector fall. 
Thy wife, thy infant, in thy danger share; 
Oh prove a husband's and a father's care! 
That quarter most the skilful Greeks annoy, 550 

Where yon wild fig-trees join the wall of Troy : 
Thou, from this tower defend th' important post; 
There Agamemnon points his dreadful host, 
That pass Tydides, Ajax, strive to gain. 
And there the vengeful Spartan fires his tram. 
Thrice our bold foes the fierce attack have given, 
Or led by hopes, or dictated from heaven. 
Let others in the field their anus employ, 
But stay my Hector here, and guard his Troy. M 

The chief replied: "That posl shall be my care, sgo 
Nor that alone, but all the works of war. 
How would the sons of Troy, in anus renown'd, 
And Troy's proud dames, whose garments sweep the 

ground, 
Attaint the lustre of my former name. 
Should Hector basely quit the field of fame ? 
My early youth was bred to martial pains, 
My soul impels me to th' embattled plains : 
Let me be foremost to defend the throne. 
And guard my father's glories, and my own. 
Yet come it will, the day decreed by fates ; 570 



BOOK VI. 65 

(How my heart trembles while my tongue relates !) 

The day when thou, imperial Troy ! must bend, 

And see thy warriors fall, thy glories end. 

And yet no dire presage so wounds my mind, 

My mother's death, the ruin of my kind, 575 

Not Priam's hoary hairs defil'd with gore, 

Not all my brothers gasping on the shore ; 

As thine, Andromache ! thy griefs I dread ; 

I see thee trembling, weeping, captive led ! 

In Argive looms our battles to design, 580 

And woes of which so large a part was thine ! 

To bear the victor's hard commands, or bring 

The weight of waters from Hyperia's spring. 

There, while you groan beneath the load of life, 

They cry, Behold the mighty Hector's wife ! 585 

Some haughty Greek, who lives thy tears to see, 

Embitters all thy woes by naming me. 

The thoughts of glory past, and present shame, 

A thousand griefs, shall waken at the name ! 

May I lie cold before that dreadful day, 590 

Press'd with a load of monumental clay ! 

Thy Hector, wrapp'd in everlasting sleep, 

Shall neither hear thee sigh, nor see thee weep." 

Thus having spoke, th' illustrious chief of Troy 
Stretch'd his fond arms to clasp the lovely boy. 595 

The babe clung crying to his nurse's breast, 
Scar'd at the dazzling helm, and nodding crest. 
With secret pleasure each fond parent smil'd, 
And Hector hasted to relieve his child ; 



66 THE ILIAD OF HOMEB. 

The glittering terrors from his brows unbound, goo 

And placed the beaming helmet on the ground. 
Then kiss'd the child, and, lifting high in air, 
Thus to the gods preferred a father's prayer : 

" thou ! whose glory fills th' ethereal throne, 
And all ye deathless powers ! protect my son ! 005 

Grant him, like me, to purchase just renown, 
To guard the Trojans, to defend the crown. 
Against his country's foes the war to w; 
And rise the Hector of the future age ! 
So when, triumphant from successful toils, cio 

Of heroes slain he bears the reeking spoils, 
Whole hosts may hail him with deserv'd acclaim. 
And say, This chief transcends his father's fame: 
While pleas \1, amidst the general Bhouts of Tr< 
His mother's conscious heart overflows with joy." gig 

He spoke, and fondly gazing on her charms 
Eestor'd the pleasing burden to her arms; 
Soft on her fragrant breast the babe she laid, 
Hush'd to repose, and with a smile survevM. 
The troubled pleasure soon chastisM by fear, 020 

She mingled with the smile a tender tear. 
The soften'd chief with kind compassion view'd, 
And dried the falling drops, and thus pursued : 

" Andromache! my soul's far better part. 
Why with untimely sorrows heaves thy heart ? G25 

No hostile hand can antedate my doom, 
Till fate condemns me to the silent tomb. 
Fix'd is the term to all the race of earth, 






BOOK VI. 67 

And such the hard condition of our birth. 

No force can then resist, no flight can save ; 630 

All sink alike, the fearful and the brave. 

No more — but hasten to thy tasks at home, 

There guide the spindle, and direct the loom : 

Me glory summons to the martial scene, 

The field of combat is the sphere for men. 635 

Where heroes war, the foremost place I claim, 

The first in danger as the first in fame." 

Thus having said, the glorious chief resumes 
His towery helmet, black with shading plumes. 
His princess parts with a prophetic sigh, gio 

Unwilling parts, and oft reverts her eye, 
That streamed at every look : then, moving slow, 
Sought her own palace, and indulged her woe. 
There, while her tears deplored the godlike man, 
Through all her train the soft infection ran ; C45 

The pious maids their mingled sorrows shed, 
And mourn the living Hector as the dead. 

But now, no longer deaf to honor's call, 
Forth issues Paris from the palace wall. 
In brazen arms that cast a gleamy ray, 650 

Swift through the town the warrior bends his way. 
The wanton courser thus, with reins unbound, 
Breaks from his stall, and beats the trembling ground ; 
Parnper'd and proud he seeks the wonted tides, 
And laves, in height of blood, his shining sides : 655 

His head now freed he tosses to the skies ; 
His mane dishevelPd o'er his shoulders flies ; 






68 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

He snuffs the females in the distant plain, 

And springs, exulting, to his fields again. 

With equal triumph, sprightly, bold, and gay, ggo 

In arms refulgent as the god of day, 

The son of Priam, glorying in his might, 

Eush'd forth with Hector to the fields of fight. 

And now the warriors passing on the way, 
The graceful Paris first excus'd his stay. ggz 

To whom the noble Hector thus replied: 
" chief! in blood, and now in arms, allied ! 
Thy power in Avar with justice none contest; 
Known is thy courage, and thy strength confessed. 
What pity, sloth should seize a soul so bnn c:o 

Or godlike Paris live a woman's slave ! 
My heart weeps blood at what the Trojans say. 
And hopes thy deeds shall wipe the stain away. 
Haste then, in all their glorious labors share ; 
For much they surfer, for thy sake, in war. I7D 

These ills shall cease, whene'er by dove's decree 
We crown the bowl to Heaven and Liberty : 
While the proud foe his frustrate triumphs mourns, 
And Greece indignant through her seas returns. 



ARGUMENT. 



BOOKS VII. -XXI. 



In the books here intervening six distinct battles are fought. In 
the two first the Trojans slowly but surely gain ground and courage, 
the Greeks being driven at last within the wall they have erected be- 
fore their fleet. Still Achilles remains inactive, repulsing Ajax and 
Ulysses who come to him as ambassadors of peace. Once indeed, in 
the third battle, he seems to take a greater interest in affairs, sending 
Patroclus for news, but he himself makes no move to aid his distressed 
countrymen. Then the Trojans force the wall and drive the Greeks 
to their ships, and, but for the bravery of Ajax, would have burnt the 
fleet. At this point Patroclus appears. Clad in the armor of Achilles 
he inspires the utmost fear among the Trojans, who turn and flee. 
Pursuing them too far he is killed by Hector, and his body only res- 
cued (by Menelaus) after a long and severe combat. By this event 
Achilles is again brought into the field. His mighty grief for the loss 
of his friend begets a burning desire for revenge. Reconciled to his 
king, clothed in new armor, brought to him from Vulcan by his god- 
dess mother, he again joins his comrades, and the twenty-first book 
closes with an account of the mighty slaughter as the war draws on. 

The scene is laid on the shore and the Trojan plain, save for brief 
and occasional intervals when it shifts to Olympos. 






THE ABGUMENT. 



THE DEATH OF BB4 TOR. 



The Trojans being safe within the walls. Hector only staya to op- 
pose Achilles. Priam is Btruck at his approach, an<l tries to persuade 

his SOS to re-enter the town. II ecu ha joins her entreaties, but in vain. 
Hector consults within himself what measures to take J hut. at the 
advance of Achilles, his resolution fails him. and he Hies: Achilles 
pursues him thrice round the walls of Troy. The gods debate con- 
cerning the fate of Sector; ;it length Minerva descends to the aid of 

Achilles. She deludes Hector in the shape of Deiphohus; he >tands 

the com hat. and is slain. Achilles drags the dead body at hi> chariot, 
in the sight of Priam and Hecuha. Their Lamentations, tean, and 
despair; Their cries react the ears ^( Andromache, who. Ignoranl «>f 

this, was retired into the Inner part of the palace: she mounts up to 
the walls, and heholds her dead hushand. She SWOOUS at the spec- 
tacle. Her excess of grief and lamentation. 

The thirtieth day still continues. The scene lies under the walls, 
and on the hattlemeiits ni Troy. 



THE ILIAD. 



BOOK XXII. 



Thus to their bulwarks, smit with panic fear, 
The herded Ilians rush like driven deer ; 
There safe, they wipe the briny drops away, 
And drown in bowls the labors of the day. 
Close to the walls, advancing o'er the fields, 5 

Beneath one roof of well-compacted shields, 
March, bending on, the Greeks' embodied powers, 
Far-stretching in the shade of Trojan towers. 
Great Hector singly stay'd ; chain'd down by fate. 
There fix'd he stood before the Seaean gate ; 10 

Still his bold arms determin'd to employ, 
The guardian still of long-defended Troy. 

Apollo now to tir'd Achilles turns 
(The power confess'din all his glory burns), 
" And what " (he cries) " has Peleus' son in view, 15 

With mortal speed a godhead to pursue ? 
For not to thee to know the gods is given, 
Unskilled to trace the latent marks of heaven. 
What boots thee now, that Troy forsook the plain ? 
Vain thy past labor, and thy present vain : 20 

Safe in their walls are now her troops bestow'd, 

71 



72 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

While here thy frantic rage attacks a god." 

The chief incens'd : " Too partial god of day ! 
To check my conquest in the middle way : 
How few in Ilion else had refuge found ! 
What gasping numbers now had bit the ground ! 
Thou robb'st me of a glory justly mine, 
Powerful of godhead, and of fraud divine: 
Mean fame, alas ! for one of heavenly strain, 
To cheat a mortal who repines in vain.'' 30 

Then to the city, terrible and Btrong, 
With high and haughty steps he tower*d along; 
So the proud courser, victor of the prize, 
To the near goal with double ardor Hies. 
Him, as he blazing shot across the field, 35 

The careful eyes of Priam ii 1st beheld. 
Not half so dreadful rises to the sight, 
Tli rough the thick -loom of some tempestuous night, 
Orion's dog (the year when autumn weighs), 
And o'er the feebler stars exerts his ra 40 

Terrific glory! for his burning breath 
Taints the red air with level's, plagues, and death. 
So flam'd his fiery mail. Then wept the sa 
He strikes his reverend head, now white with age; 
He lifts his wither'd arms ; obtests the skies; 45 

He calls his much-lov'd son with feeble cries: 
The son, resolvYl Achilles 1 force to dare, 
Full at the Sceean gate expects the war : 
While the sad father on the rampart stands, 
And thus adjures him with extended hands : 50 



BOOK XXII. 73 

" Ah stay not, stay not ! guardless and alone ; 
Hector, my lov'd, my dearest, bravest son ! 
Methinks already I behold thee slain, 
And stretched beneath that fury of the plain. 
Implacable Achilles ! might'st thou be 55 

To all the gods no dearer than to me ! 
Thee, vultures wild should scatter round the shore, 
And bloody dogs grow fiercer from thy gore ! 
How many valiant sons I late enjoy'd, 
Valiant in vain ! by thy curs'd arm destroyed : 60 

Or, worse than slaughtered, sold in distant isles 
To shameful bondage and unworthy toils. 
Two, while I speak, my eyes in vain explore, 
Two from one mother sprung, my Polydore 
And loved Lycaon ; now perhaps no more ! . 65 

Oh ! if in yonder hostile camp they live, 
What heaps of gold, what treasures would I give ! 
(Their grandsire's wealth, by right of birth their own. 
Consigned his daughter with Lelegia's throne :) 
But if (which heaven forbid) already lost, 70 

All pale they wander on the Stygian coast, 
What sorrows then must their sad mother know, 
What anguish I ! unutterable woe ! 
Yet less that anguish, less to her, to me, 
Less to all Troy, if not deprived of thee. 75 

Yet shun Achilles ! enter yet the wall ; 
And spare thyself, thy father, spare us all ! 
Save thy dear life : or if a soul so brave 
Xeglect that thought, thy clearer glory save. 



74 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Pity, while yet I live, these silver hairs ; so 

While yet thy father feels the woes he bears, 

Yet curs'd with sense ! a wretch, whom in his rage 

(All trembling on the verge of helpless age) 

Great Jove has placed, sad spectacle of pain ! 

The bitter dregs of fortune's cup to drain : so 

To fill with scenes of death his closing eyes, 

And number all his days by miseries ! 

My heroes slain, my bridal bed o'erturn'd. 

My daughters ravish'd, and my city burn'd, 

My bleeding infants dash'd against the floor; 90 

These I have yet to sec. perhaps yel more I 

Perhaps e'en I, reserved by angry fate 

The last sad relic of my ruined state 

(Dire pomp of sovereign wretchedness I) must fall 

And stain the pavement of my regal hall ; 

Where faniish'd dogs, late guardians of my door, 

Shall lick their mangled master's spatterM gore. 

Yet for my sons I thank ye, gods ! 'twas well : 

Well have they perish'd, lor in fight they fell. 

Who dies iu youth and vigor, dies the best, 100 

Struck through with wounds, all honest on the breast. 
But when the fates, in fulness of their rage, 
Spurn the hoar head of unresisting age, 
In dust the reverend lineaments deform. 
And pour to dogs the life-blood scarcely warm; 105 

This, this is misery ! the last, the worst. 
That man can feel : man. fated to be curs'd ! " 
He said, and acting what no words could say, 



BOOK XXII. 75 

Eent from his head the silver locks away. 

With him the mournful mother bears a part : no 

Yet all their sorrows turn not Hector's heart : 

The zone unbraced, her bosom she displayed ; 

And thus, fast-falling the salt tears, she said : 

"Have mercy on me, my son ! revere 
The words of age ; attend a parent's prayer ! 115 

If ever thee in these fond arms I pressed, 
Or still'd thy infant clamors at this breast ; 
Ah ! do not thus our helpless years forego, 
But, by our walls secur'd, repel the foe. 
Against his rage if singly thou proceed, 120 

Should'st thou (but heaven avert it!) should'st thou 

bleed, 
Nor must thy corse lie honor'd on the bier, 
Nor spouse, nor mother, grace thee with a tear; 
Far from our pious rites, those dear remains 
Must feast the vultures on the naked plains." 125 

So they, while down their cheeks the torrents roll : 
But fix'd remains the purpose of his soul ; 
Re solved he stands, and with a fiery glance 
Expects the hero's terrible advance. 

So, roll'd up in his den, the swelling snake 130 

Beholds the traveller approach the brake ; 
When, fed with noxious herbs, his turgid veins 
Have gather'd half the poisons of the plains ; 
He burns, he stiffens with collected ire, 
And his red eyeballs glare with living fire. 135 

Beneath a turret, on his shield reclin'd, 



76 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

He stood, and questioned thus his mighty mind : 
" Where lies my way ? To enter in the wall ? 
Honor and shame th' ungenerous thought recall : 
Shall proud Polydamas before the gate ho 

Proclaim, his counsels are obey'd too late. 
Which timely followM but the former night. 
What numbers had been sav'd by Hector's flight? 
That wise advice rejected with disdain. 
I feel my folly in my people slain. 14.-, 

Methinks my Buffering country's voice I hear. 
But most, her worthless sons insult my car. 
On my rash courage charge the chance of war. 
And blame those virtues which they cannot share. 
No — If I e'er return, return I musl 150 

Glorious, my country's tenor laid in dust: 

Or if I perish, let her see my lull 

In field at least, and fighting for her wall. 

And yet suppose these measures I forej 

Approach unarm'd, and parley with the foe, 1 .-..-. 

The warrior-shield, the helm, and lance lay down. 

And treat on terms of peace to save the town : 

The wife withheld, the treasure ill-detain'd. 

(Cause of the war, and grievance of the land), 

With honorable justice to restore ; 160 

And add half Ilion's yet remaining store, 

Which Troy shall, sworn, produce; thai injur'd Gr< 

May share our wealth, and leave our walls in peace. 

But why this thought ? unarm' d if I should go, 

AVhat hope of mercy from this vengeful foe, [65 



BOOK XXII. 77 

But woman-like to fall, and fall without a blow ? 

We greet not here, as man conversing man, 

Met at an oak, or journeying o'er a plain ; 

No season now for calm, familiar talk, 

Like youths and maidens in an evening walk : 170 

War is our business, but to whom is given 

To die or triumph, that determine heaven ! " 

Thus pondering, like a god the Greek drew nigh : 
His dreadful plumage nodded from on high ; 
The Pelian javelin, in his better hand, 175 

Shot trembling rays that glitter'd o'er the land ; 
And on his breast the beamy splendors shone 
Like Jove's own lightning, or the rising sun, 
As Hector sees, unusual terrors rise, 
Struck by some god, he fears, recedes, and flies : iso 

He leaves the gates, he leaves the walls behind ; 
Achilles follows like the winged wind. 
Thus at the panting dove the falcon flies 
(The swiftest racer of the liquid skies) ; 
Just when he holds, or thinks he holds, his prey, is5 

Obliquely wheeling through th' aerial way, 
With open beak and shrilling cries he springs, 
And aims his claws, and shoots upon his wings : 
]STo less fore-right the rapid chase they held, 
One urg'd by fury, one by fear impell'd ; 190 

Now circling round the walls their course maintain, 
AVhere the high watch-tower overlooks the plain ; 
Now where the fig-trees spread their umbrage broad 
(A wider compass), smoke along the road. 



78 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Next by Scamander's double source they bound, 195 

Where two fanrd fountains burst the parted ground : 

This hot through scorching clefts is seen to rise, 

With exhalations steaming to the skies ; 

That the green banks in summer's heat overflows, 

Like crystal clear, and cold as winter snows. 200 

Each gushing fount a marble cistern tills, 

Whose polish'd bed receives the Calling rills; 

Where Trojan dames (ere yet alarm'd by Greece) 

Wash'd their fair garments in the days of peace. 

By these they pass'd, one chasing, one in flight 205 

(The mighty fled, pursued by stronger might); 

Swift was the course; do vulgar prize they play. 

No vulgar victim must reward the day 

(Such as in races crown the speedy strife); 

The prize contended was great Sector's lite. 210 

As when some hero's Funerals arc decreed, 
In grateful honor of the mighty dead ; 
Where high rewards the vigorous youth inflame 
(Some golden tripod, or some lovely dame), 
The panting coursers swiftly turn the goal, 216 

And with them turns the rais'd spectator's soul : 
Thus three times round the Trojan wall they fly; 
The gazing gods lean forward from the sky : 
To whom, while eager on the chase they look, 
The sire of mortals and immortals spoke : ssb 

"Unworthy sight! the man. belov'd of heaven, 
Behold, inglorious round yon city driven ! 
My heart partakes the generous Hector's pain ; 



BOOK XXII. 79 

Hector, whose zeal whole hecatombs has slain, 

Whose grateful fumes the gods received with joy, 225 

From Ida's summits, and the towers of Troy : 

Xow see him flying ! to his fears resigned, 

And Fate, and fierce Achilles, close behind. 

Consult, ye powers ('tis worthy your debate) 

Whether to snatch him from . mpending fate, 230 

Or let him bear, by stern Pelides slain 

(Good as he is), the lot imposed on man ? " 

Then Pallas thus : " Shall he whose vengeance forms 
The forky bolt, and blackens heaven with storms, 
Shall he prolong one Trojan's forfeit breath, 235 

A man, a mortal, pre-ordain'd to death ? 
And will no murmurs fill the courts above ? 
No gods indignant blame their partial Jove ? " 

" Go then " (returned the sire), " without delay ; 
Exert thy will : I give the fates their way.*' 240 

Swift at the mandate pleas'd Tritonia flies, 
And stoops impetuous from the cleaving skies. 

As through the forest, o'er the vale and lawn, 
The well-breath'd beagle drives the flying fawn ; 
In vain he tries the covert of the brakes, 245 

Or deep beneath the trembling thicket shakes : 
Sure of the vapor in the tainted dews, 
The certain hound his various maze pursues : 
Thus step by step, where'er the Trojan wheel'd, 
There swift Achilles compass round the field. 250 

Oft as to reach the Dardan gates he bends, 
And hopes th' assistance of his pitying friends, 



80 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

(Whose showering arrows, as he cours'd below, 
From the high turrets might oppress the foe), 
So oft Achilles turns him to the plain : 255 

He eyes the city, but he eyes in vain. 
As men in slumbers seem with speedy pace 
One to pursue, and one to lead the chase, 
Their sinking limbs the fancied course forsake, 
Nor this can fly, nor that can overtake : 260 

No less the laboring heroes pant and strain; 
While that but flics, and this pursues, in vain. 
What god, O .Muse! assisted Hector's force, 
With Fate itself so long t<> hold the coarse 
Phoebus it was: who, in his latest hour, 
Endued his knees with strength, his nerves with power; 

And great Achilles, lest some <; reek's advance 
Should snatch the glory from his lifted lance, 

Sign'd to the troops, to yield his foe the way, 
And leave untouch'd the honors of the day. 

Jove lifts the golden balances, that show 
The fates of mortal men, and things below : 
Here each contending hero's lot he tries, 
And weighs, with equal hand, their destinies. 
Low sinks the scale sureharg'd with Hector's fate ; •_>:.- 
Heavy with death it sinks, and hell receives the weight. 

Then Phoebus left him. Fierce Minerva flies 
To stern Pelides, and, triumphing, cries: 
" Oh lov ? d of Jove ! this day our labors cease, 
And conquest blazes with full beams on Greece. 280 

Great Hector falls ; that Hector fam'd so far, 






BOOK XXII. 81 

Drunk with renown, insatiable of war, 

Falls by thy hand, and mine ! nor force nor flight 

Shall more avail him, nor his god of light. 

See, where in vain he supplicates above, 285 

BolPd at the feet of unrelenting Jove ! 

Rest here : myself will lead the Trojan on, 

And urge to meet the fate he cannot shun." 

Her voice divine the chief with joyful mind 
Obey'd, and rested, on his lance reclined. 290 

While like Dei'phobus the martial dame 
(Her face, her gesture, and her arms, the same), 
In show an aid, by hapless Hector's side 
Approach'd, and greets him thus with voice belied : 

" Too long, Hector ! have I borne the sight 293 

Of this distress, and sorrow'd in thy flight : 
It fits us now a noble stand to make, 
And here, as brothers, equal fates partake." 

Then he : " prince ! allied in blood and fame, 
Dearer than all that own a brother's name ; 300 

Of all that Hecuba to Priam bore, 
Long tried, long lov'd ; much lov'd, but honor'd more ! 
Since you of all our numerous race alone 
Defend my life, regardless of your own." 

Again the goddess : " Much my father's prayer, 305 
And much my mother's, press'd me to forbear : 
My friends embraced my knees, adjur'd my stay, 
But stronger love impell'd, and I obey. 
Come then, the glorious conflict let us try, 
Let the steel sparkle and the javelin fly ; 310 



82 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Or let us stretch Achilles on the field, 
Or to his arm our bloody trophies yield." 

Fraudful she said ; then swiftly march'd before ; 
The Dardan hero shuns his foe no more. 
Sternly they met. The silence Hector broke ; 315 

His dreadful plumage nodded as he spoke : 

" Enough, son of Peleus ! Troy has viewM 
Her walls thrice circled, and her chief pursued. 
But now some god within me bids me try 
Thine, or my fate : I kill thee, or I die. 320 

Yet on the verge of battle let us stay. 
And for a moment's space suspend the day : 
Let heaven's high powers be call'd to arbitrate 
The just conditions of this stern debate : 
(Eternal witnesses of all below, 325 

And faithful guardians of the treasur'd vow !) 
To them I swear: if, victor in the strife 
Jove by these hands shall Bhed thy noble life. 
No vile dishonor shall thy corse pursue; 
Stripp'd of its arms alone (the conqueror's due), 330 

The rest to Greece uninjur'd Til restore : 
Now plight thy mutual oath, I ask no more." 

"Talk not of oaths," (the dreadful chief replies, 
While anger flash'd from his disdainful eyes), 
" Detested as thou art, and ought to be, 336 

Nor oath nor pact Achilles plights with thee ; 
Such pacts, as lambs and rabid wolves combine, 
Such leagues, as men and furious lions join, 
To such 1 call the gods ! one constant state 



BOOK XXII. 83 

Of lasting rancor and eternal hate : 340 

No thought but rage, and never-ceasing strife, 

Till death extinguish rage, and thought, and life. 

Rouse then thy forces this important hour, 

Collect thy soul, and call forth all thy power. 

No farther subterfuge, no farther chance ; 345 

? Tis Pallas, Pallas gives thee to my lance. 

Each Grecian ghost by thee deprived of breath, 

Now hovers round, and calls thee to thy death." 

He spoke, and launched his javelin at the foe ; 
But Hector shunn'd the meditated blow : 350 

He stoop'd, while o'er his head the flying spear 
Sung innocent, and spent its force in air. 
Minerva watch' d it falling on the land, 
Then drew, and gave to great Achilles' hand, 
Unseen of Hector, who, elate with joy, 355 

Now shakes his lance, and braves the dread of Troy : 

" The life you boasted to that javelin given, 
Prince ! you have miss'd. My fate depends on heaven. 
To thee (presumptuous as thou art) unknown 
Or what must prove my fortune, or thy own. 360 

Boasting is but an art, our fears to blind, 
And with false terrors sink another's mind. 
But know, whatever fate I am to try, 
By no dishonest wound shall Hector die ; 
I shall not fall a fugitive at least, 365 

My soul shall bravely issue from my breast. 
But first, try thou my arm : and may this dart 
End all my country's woes, deep buried in thy heart ! " 



84 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

The weapon flew, its course unerring held ; 
Unerring, but the heavenly shield repelPd 370 

The mortal dart; resulting with a bound 
From off the ringing orb, it struck the ground. 
Hector beheld his javelin fall in vain, 
Nor other lance, nor other hope remain; 
He calls Deiphobus, demands a spear, 
In vain, for no Deiphobus was there. 
All comfortless he stands: then, with a sigh, 
u ? Tis so — heaven wills it, and my Lour is nigh ! 
I deem'd Deiphobus had heard my call, 
lUit he secure lies guarded in the wall. 380 

A god deceiv'd me ; Pallas, 'twas thy deed : 

Death and black fate approach | 'tis I must bleed : 
No refuge now, no succor from above. 

Great dove deserts me. and the son of dove. 
Propitious once, and kind! Then welcome fate I 
'Tis true I perish, yet 1 perish great : 
Yet in a mighty deed I shall expire, 
Let future ages hear it. and admire ! " 

Fierce, at the word, his weighty sword he drew, 
And. all collected, on Achilles flew, 390 

So Jove's bold bird, high balanced in the air, 
Stoops from the clouds to truss the quivering hare. 
Nor less Achilles his fierce soul prepares; 
Before his breast the flaming shield he bears, 
Refulgent orb! above his fourfold cone 395 

The gilded horse-hair sparkled in the sun, 
Nodding at every step (Vulcanian frame ! ) 



BOOK XXII. 85 

And as he mov'd, his figure seemed on flame. 

As radiant Hesper shines with keener light, 

Far-beaming o'er the silver host of night, 400 

When all the starry train emblaze the sphere : 

So shone the point of great Achilles' spear. 

In his right hand he waves the weapon round, 

Eyes the whole man, and meditates the wound : 

But the rich mail Patroclus lately wore, 405 

Securely cased the warrior's body o'er. 

One place at length he spies, to let in fate, 

Where 'twixt the neck and throat the jointed plate 

Gave entrance : through that penetrable part 

Furious he drove the well-directed dart : 410 

Nor pierc'd the windpipe yet, nor took the power 

Of speech, unhappy ! from thy dying hour. 

Prone on the field the bleeding warrior lies, 

While thus, triumphing, stern Achilles cries : 

" At last is Hector stretch'd upon the plain, 415 

Who f ear'd no vengeance for Patroclus slain : 
Then, prince ! you should have fear'd, what now you feel ; 
Achilles absent was Achilles still. 
Yet a short space the great avenger stay'd, 
Then low in dust thy strength and glory laid. 420 

Peaceful he sleeps, with all our rites adorn'd, 
For ever honor'd, and for ever mourn'd : 
While, cast to all the rage of hostile power, 
Thee birds shall mangle, and the dogs devour." 

Then Hector, fainting at th' approach of death : 425 
" By thy own soul ! by those who gave thee breath ! 



86 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

By all the sacred prevalence of prayer ; 

Ah, leave me not for Grecian dogs to tear ! 

The common rites of sepulture bestow, 

To soothe a father's and a mother's woe ; 430 

Let their large gifts procure an urn at least, 

And Hector's ashes in his country rest." 

"No, wretch accurs'd !" relentless he replies 
(Flames, as he spoke, shot flashing from his eyes), 
"Not those who gave me breath should bid me spare, 435 
Nor all the sacred prevalence of prayer. 
Could I myself the bloody banquet join ! 
No — to the dogs that carcass I resign. 
Should Troy to bribe me bring forth all her store, 
And, giving thousands, offer thousands more; ho 

Should Dardan Priam, and his weeping dame. 
Drain their whole realm to buy one funeral flame ; 
Their Hector on the pile they should not b< 
Nor rob the vultures of one limb of thee." 

Then thus the chief his dying accents drew: 445 

"Thy rage, implacable ! too well I knew : 
The Furies that relentless breast have Bteel'd, 
And curs'd thee with a heart that cannot yield. 
Yet think, a day will conic, when Pate's decree 
And angry gods shall wreak this wrong on thee; 450 

Phoebus and Paris shall avenge my fate, 
And stretch thee here, before this Scsean gate." 

He ceas'd : the Fates suppressed his laboring breath, 
And his eyes stiffen'd at the hand of death ; 
To the dark realm the spirit wings its way 455 



BOOK XXII. 87 

(The manly body left a load of clay), 
And plaintive glides along the dreary coast, 
A naked, wandering, melancholy ghost ! 

Achilles, musing as he roll'd his eyes 
O'er the dead hero, thus (unheard) replies : ago 

" Die thou the first ! when Jove and heaven ordain, 
I follow thee." He said, and stripp'd the slain. 
Then, forcing backward from the gaping wound 
The reeking javelin, cast it on the ground. 
The thronging Greeks behold with wondering eyes, 465 
His manly beauty and superior size : 
While some, ignobler, the great dead deface 
With wounds ungenerous, or with taunts disgrace. 
" How changed that Hector ! who. like Jove, of late 
Sent lightning on our fleets and scattered fate ! " 470 

High o'er the slain the great Achilles stands, 
Begirt with heroes and surrounding bands ; 
And thus aloud, while all the host attends : 
" Princes and leaders ! countrymen and friends ! 
Since now at length the powerful will of heaven 475 

The dire destroyer to our arm has given. 
Is not Troy fall'n already ? Haste, ye powers ! 
See if already their deserted towers 
Are left unmann'd ; or if they vet retain 
The souls of heroes, their great Hector slain ? 4so 

But what is Troy, or glory what to me ? 
Or why reflects my mind on aught but thee, 
Divine Patroclus ! death has seal'd his eyes ; 
Unwept, unhonor'd, uninterr'd he lies ! 



88 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Can his dear image from my soul depart, 485 

Long as the vital spirit moves my heart ? 

If, in the melancholy shades below, 

The flames of friends and lovers cease to glow, 

Yet mine shall sacred last ; mine, nndecay'd, 

Burn on through death, and animate my shade. 490 

Meanwhile, ye sons of Greece, in triumph bring 

The corse of Hector, and your Paeans sing. 

Be this the song, slow moving tow'rd the shore, 

6 Hector is dead, and Ilion is no more. ■ " 

Then his fell soul a thought of vengeance bred 486 
(Unworthy of himself, and of the dead); 
The nervous ankles bor'd. his feet he bound 
With thongs inserted through the double wound; 
These fix'd up high behind the rolling wain. 
His graceful head was trail'd along the plain. 500 

Proud on his car tlT insulting victor stood. 
And bore aloft his arms, distilling blood. 
He smites the steeds ; the rapid chariot flies; 
The sudden clouds of circling dust arise. 
Now lost is all that formidable air; 
The face divine, and long-descending hair. 
Purple the ground, and streak the sable sand; 
Deform'd, dishonor'd, in his native land ! 
(liven to the rage of an insulting throng ! 
And, in his parents' sight, now dragg'd along. 510 

The mother first beheld with sad survey ; 
She rent her tresses, venerably gray, 
And cast far off the regal veils away. 



BOOK XXII. 89 

With piercing shrieks his bitter fate she moans, 

While the sad father answers groans with groans ; 515 

Tears after tears his mournful cheeks overflow, 

And the whole city wears one face of woe : 

No less than if the rage of hostile fires, 

From her foundations curling to her spires, 

O'er the proud citadel at length should rise, 520 

And the last blaze send Ilion to the skies. 

The wretched monarch of the falling state, 

Distracted, presses to the Dardan gate : 

Scarce the whole people stop his desperate course, 

While strong affliction gives the feeble force : 525 

Grief tears his heart, and drives him to and fro, 

In all the raging impotence of woe. 

At length he roll'd in dust, and thus begun, 

Imploring all, and naming one by one : 

" Ah ! let me, let me go where sorrow calls ; 530 

I, only I, will issue from your walls 

(Guide or companion, friends ! I ask ye none), 

And bow before the murderer of my son. 

My grief perhaps his pity may engage ; 

Perhaps at least he may respect my age. 535 

He has a father too ; a man like me ; 

One, not exempt from age and misery : 

(Vigorous no more, as when his young embrace 

Begot this pest of me, and all my race.) 

How many valiant sons, in early bloom, 540 

Has that curs'd hand sent headlong to the tomb 

Thee, Hector ! last ; thy loss (divinely brave !) 



90 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Sinks my sad soul with sorrow to the grave. 

Oh had thy gentle spirit pass'c! in peace, 

The son expiring in the sire's embrace, 545 

While both thy parents wept thy fatal hour, 

And, bending o'er thee, mix'cl the tender shower ! 

Some comfort that had been, some sad relief, 

To melt in full satiety of grief ! " 

Thus wail'd the father, groveling on the ground, 550 
And all the eyes of Ilion stream \l around. 

Amidst her matrons Hecuba appears 
(A mourning princess, and a train in tears) : 
"Ah! why has heaven prolonged this hated breath, 
Patient of horrors, to behold thy death ? 
Hector! late thy parents' pride and joy, 
The boast of nations ! the defence of Troy ! 
To whom her safety and her Fame she ow'd, 
Her chief, her hero, and almost her god ! 
O fatal change! become in one sad day 500 

A senseless corse! inanimated clay ! " 

But not as yet the fatal news had spread 
To fair Andromache, of Hector dead ; 
As yet no messenger had told his fate, 
Nor e'en his stay without the Sc&an gate. 
Far in the close recesses of the dome 
Pensive she plied the melancholy loom ; 
A growing work employed her secret hours, 
Confus'dly gay with intermingled flowers. 
Her fair-hair d handmaids heat the brazen urn, 570 

The bath preparing for her lord's return : 



BOOK XXII. 91 

In vain : alas ! her lord returns no more ! 

Unbathed he lies, and bleeds along the shore ! 

Now from the walls the clamors reach her ear, 

And all her members shake with sudden fear ; 575 

Forth from her ivory hand the shuttle falls, 

As thus, astonished to her maid she calls : 

" Ah, follow me ! w (she cried ;) " what plaintive noise 
Invades my ear ? 'Tis sure my mother's voice. 
My faltering knees their trembling frame desert, 580 

A pulse unusual falters at my heart. 
Some strange disaster, some reverse of fate 
(Ye gods avert it !) threats the Trojan state. 
Far be the omen which my thoughts suggest ! 
But much I fear my Hector's dauntless breast 585 

Confronts Achilles ; chas'd along the plain, 
Shut from our walls ! I fear, I fear him slain ! 
Safe in the crowd he ever scorn'd to wait, 
And sought for glory in the jaws of fate : 
Perhaps that noble heat has cost his breath, 590 

Now quench' d for ever in the arms of death." 

She spoke ; and, furious, with distracted pace, 
Fears in her heart, and anguish in her face, 
Flies through the dome (the maids her step pursue), 
And mounts the walls, and sends around her view. 595 
Too soon her eyes the killing object found, 
The godlike Hector dragg'd along the ground. 
A sudden darkness shades her swimming eyes : 
She faints, she falls 5 her breath, her color^ flies. 
Her hair's fair ornaments, the braids that bound, coo 



92 THE ILIAD OF IIOMEll. 

The net that held them, and the wreath that crown'd. 

The veil and diadem, flew far away 

(The gift of Venus on her bridal clay). 

Around a train of weeping sisters stands, 

To raise her sinking with assistant hands. 603 

Scarce from the verge of death recall'd, again 

She faints, or but recovers to complain : 

" wretched husband of a wretched wife ! 
Born with one fate, to one unhappy life ! 
For sure one star its baneful beam displayed 610 

On Priam's roof, and Hippoplacia's shade. 
From different parents, different climes, we came, 
At different periods, yet our fate the same ! 
Why was my birth to great Eetion ow'd, 
And why was all that lender care bestow'd ? 615 

Would 1 had never been ! — Oh thou, the ghost 
Of my dead husband ! miserably lost! 
Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone ! 
And I abandoned, desolate, alone ! 

An only child, once comfort of my pains, 620 

Sad product now of hapless love, remains! 
No more to smile upon his sire ! no friend 
To help him now ! no father to defend ! 
For should he 'scape the sword, the common doom, 
What wrongs attend him, and what griefs to come ! 625 
E'en from his own paternal roof expell'd. 
Some stranger ploughs his patrimonial field. 
The day that to the shades the father sends, 
Robs the sad orphan of his father's friends : 



BOOK XXII. 93 

He, wretched outcast of mankind ! appears 930 

For ever sad, for ever bath'd in tears ; 

Amongst the happy, unregarded he 

Hangs on the robe or trembles at the knee ; 

While those his father's former bounty fed, 

Nor reach the goblet, nor divide the bread : 635 

The kindest but his present wants allay, 

To leave him wretched the succeeding day. 

Frugal compassion ! Heedless, they who boast 

Both parents still, nor feel what he has lost, 

Shall cry, Begone ! thy father feasts not here : wo 

The wretch obeys, retiring with a tear. 

Thus wretched, thus retiring all in tears, 

To my sad soul Astyanax appears ! 

Forced by repeated insults to return, 

And to his widow'd mother vainly mourn. 645 

He, who, with tender delicacy bred, 

With princes sported, and on dainties fed, 

And, when still evening gave him up to rest, 

Sunk soft in down upon the nurse's breast, 

Must — ah what must he not ? Whom Ilion calls 650 

Astyanax, from her well-guarded walls, 

Is now that name no more, unhappy boy ! 

Since now no more thy father guards his Troy. 

But thou, my Hector ! liest expos'd in air, 

Far from thy parent's and thy consort's care, 655 

Whose hand in vain, directed by her love, 

The martial scarf and robe of triumph wove. 

Now to devouring flames be these a prey, 



94 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Useless to thee, from this accursed day ! 
Yet let the sacrifice at least be paid, 
And honor to the living, not the dead ! " 

So spake the mournful dame : her matrons hear, 
Sigh back her sighs, and answer tear with tear. 



BOOK XXIII. 



ARGUMENT. 



Achilles and the Myrmidons do honors to the body of Patroclus. 
After the funeral feast he retires to the seashore, where, falling 
asleep, the ghost of his friend appears to him, and demands the rites 
of burial: the next morning the soldiers are sent with mules and 
wagons to fetch wood for the pyre. The funeral procession, and the 
offering their hair to the dead. Achilles sacrifices several animals, 
and lastly, twelve Trojan captives, at the pile ; then sets fire to it. 
He pays libations to the winds, which (at the instance of Iris) rise, 
and raise the flame. When the pile has burned all night, they 
gather the bones, place them in an urn of gold, and raise the tomb. 
Achilles institutes the funeral games: the chariot-race, the fight of 
the caBstus, the wrestling, the footrace, the single combat, the discus, 
the shooting with arrows, the darting the javelin: the various de- 
scriptions of which, and the various success of the several antagonists, 
make the greatest part of the book. 

In this book ends the thirtieth day: the night following, the 
ghost of Patroclus appears to Achilles: the one-and- thirtieth day is 
employed in felling the timber for the pile ; the two-and-thirtieth in 
burning it ; and the three-and-thirtieth in the games. The scene is 
generally on the seashore. 



THE ARGUMENT. 

THE REDEMPTION OF THE BODY OF HECTOR. 

The gods deliberate about the redemption of Hector's body. Jupi- 
ter sends Thetis to Achilles to dispose him for the restoring it, and 

Iris to Priam, to encourage him to go in person, and treat for it. The 
old king, notwithstanding the remonstrances of his queen, makes 

ready for the journey, to which he is encouraged by an omen from 
Jupiter. He sets forth in his chariot, with a wagon loaded with 
presents, under the charge of [dseua the herald. Mercury descends 
in the shape of a young man, and conducts him to the pavilion of 
Achilles. Their conversation on the way. Priam finds Achill 

his table, casts himself at his feet, and DOgS for the hody of hi- 
Achilles, moved with compassion, grants his request, detains him 
one night in his tent, and the next morning sends him home with the 
body: the Trojans run OUl t<> meet him. The lamentation of Andro- 
mache, Hecuba, and Helen, with the solemnities of the funeral. 

The time of twelve days is employed in this hook, while the body 
of Hector lies in the tent of Achilles. And as many more are Bpent 

in the truce allowed for his interment. The scene is partly in 
Achilles' camp, and partly in Troy. 



THE ILIAD. 



BOOK XXIV. 



Now from the finish'd games the Grecian band 
Seek their black ships, and clear the crowded strand : 
All stretch' d at ease the genial banquet share, 
And pleasing slumbers quiet all their care. 
Not so Achilles : he, to grief resigned, 5 

His friend's dear image present to his mind, 
Takes his sad couch, more unobserved to weep, 
Nor tastes the gifts of all-composing sleep ; 
Eestless he rolPd around his weary bed, 
And all his soul on his Patroclus fed : 10 

The form so pleasing, and the heart so kind, 
That youthful vigor, and that manly mind, 
What toils they shar'd, what martial works they wrought, 
What seas they measured, and what fields they fought ; 
All pass'd before him in remembrance dear, 15 

Thought follows thought, and tear succeeds to tear. 
And now supine, now prone, the hero lay, 
Now shifts his side, impatient for the day ; 
Then starting up, disconsolate he goes 
Wide on the lonely beach to vent his woes. 20 

There as the solitary mourner raves, 

97 



98 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

The ruddy morning rises o'er the waves : 

Soon as it rose, his furious steeds he join'd ; 

The chariot flies, and Hector trails behind. 

And thrice, Patroclus ! round thy monument 25 

Was Hector dragg'd, then hurried to the tent. 

There sleep at last o'ercomes the hero's eyes ; 

While foul in dust th' unhonor'd carcass lies, 

But not deserted by the pitying skies. 

For Phoebus watch'd it with superior care, 30 

Preserved from gaping wounds, and tainting air; 

And, ignominious as it swept the field, 

Spread o'er the sacred corse his golden shield. 

All heaven was mov'd. and Hermes wilFd to 

By stealth to snatch him from th' insulting foe: 

But Neptune this, and Pallas this den; 

And th' unrelenting empress <>f the ski* 

E'er since that day implacable i<> Troy, 

What time young Paris, Bimple shepherd boy, 

Won by destructive lust (reward obscene) 40 

Their charms rejected for the Cyprian queen. 

But when the tenth celestial morning broke, 

To heaven assembled, thus Apollo spoke: 

"Unpitying powers ! how oft each holy fane 
Has Hector ting'd with blood of victims slain ? 15 

And can ye still his cold remains pursue? 
Still grudge his body to the Trojans' view ? 
Deny to consort, mother, son, and sire, 
The last sad honors of a funeral fire ? 
Is then the dire Achilles all your care ? 



BOOK XXIV. 99 

That iron heart, inflexibly severe ; 

A lion, not a man, who slaughters wide 

In strength of rage and impotence of pride, 

Who hastes to murder with a savage joy, 

Invades around, and breathes but to destroy. 55 

Shame is not of his soul ; nor understood, 

The greatest evil and the greatest good. 

Still for one loss he rages unresign'd, 

Repugnant to the lot of all mankind ; 

To lose a friend, a brother, or a son, 60 

Heaven dooms each mortal, and its will is done : 

Awhile they sorrow, then dismiss their care ; 

Fate gives the wound, and man is born to bear. 

But this insatiate the commission given 

By fate, exceeds ; and tempts the wrath of heaven : 65 

Lo how his rage dishonest drags along 

Hector's dead earth, insensible of wrong ! 

Brave though he be, yet by no reason aw'd, 

He violates the laws of man and God ! " 

" If equal honors by the partial skies 70 

Are doom'd both heroes " (Juno thus replies), 
" If Thetis' son must no distinction know, 
Then hear, ye gods ! the patron of the bow. 
But Hector only boasts a mortal claim, 
His birth deriving from a mortal dame : 75 

Achilles of your own ethereal race 
Springs from a goddess, by a man's embrace 
(A goddess by ourself to Peleus given, 
A man divine, and chosen friend of heaven) : 



, 



100 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

To grace those nuptials, from the bright abode 
Yourselves were present ; where this minstrel-god 
(Well-pleas'd to share the feast) amid the choir 
Stood proud to hymn, and tune his youthful lyre.'' 

Then thus the Thunderer checks the imperial dame : 
"Let not thy wrath the court of heaven inflame; 86 

Their merits, nor their honors, arc t lie same. 
But mine, and every god's peculiar grace 
Hector deserves, of all the Trojan race : 
Still on our shrines his grateful offerings lay 
(The only honors men to gods can pay), oo 

Nor ever from our Bmoking altar ceas'd 
The pure libation, and the holy feast 
Howe'er, by stealth to snatch the corse away. 
We will not: Thetis guards it nighl and day. 
But haste, and summon to our courts above 
The azure queen : let her persuasion move 
Her furious son from Priam to receive 
The proffer'd ransom, and the corse to lea 

He added not: and Iris from the skies. 
Swift as a whirlwind, on the message 11: km. 

Meteorous the face of ocean sweeps, 
Refulgent gliding o'er the sable deeps. 
Between where Samos wide his forests spreads, 
And rocky Imbrus lifts its pointed heads, 
Down plungM the maid (the parted waves resound) ; ios 
She plungM, and instant shot the dark profound. 
As, bearing death in the fallacious bait, 
From the bent angle sinks the leaden weight ; 



BOOK XXIV. 101 

So pass'd the goddess through the closing wave. 

Where Thetis sorrowed in her secret cave : no 

There placed amidst her melancholy train 

(The blue-hair'd sisters of the sacred main) 

Pensive she sat, revolving fates to come, 

And wept her godlike son's approaching doom. 

Then thus the goddess of the painted bow : 115 

" Arise, Thetis ! from thy seats below ; 
'Tis Jove that calls." " And why/' (the dame replies) 
" Calls Jove his Thetis to the hated skies ? 
Sad object as I am for heavenly sight ! 
Ah ! may my sorrows ever shun the light ! 120 

Howe'er, be heaven's almighty sire obey'd : " 
She spake, and veil'd her head in sable shade, 
Which, flowing long, her graceful person clad ; 
And forth she paced majestically sad. 

Then through the world of waters they repair 125 

(The way fair Iris led) to upper air. 
The deeps dividing, o'er the coast they rise, 
And touch with momentary flight the skies. 
There in the lightning's blaze the sire they found, 
And all the gods in shining synod round. 130 

Thetis approach'd with anguish in her face 
(Minerva rising gave the mourner place), 
E'en Juno sought her sorrows to console, 
And offer'd from her hand the nectar bowl : 
She tasted, and resign'd it : then began 135 

The sacred sire of gods and mortal man : 

" Thou com'st, fair Thetis, but with grief o'ercast, 



102 THE ILIAD OF TI03IEB. 

Maternal sorrows, long, ah long to last ! 

Suffice, Ave know, and we partake, thy eares : 

But yield to fate, and hear what Jove declares. ho 

Nine days are past, since all the court above 

In Hector's cause have mov'd the ear of Jove ; 

; Twas voted, Hermes from his godlike foe 

By stealth should bear him, but we will'd not so : 

We will, thy son himself the corse restore, 145 

And to his conquest add this glory more. 

Then hie thee to him, and our mandate bear ; 

Tell him he tempts the wrath of heaven too far : 

Nor let him more (our angei if he dread) 

Vent his mad vengeance 4 on tin 1 sacred dead : 150 

But yield to ransom and the lather's prayer. 

The mournful father Iris shall prepare. 

With gifts to sue ■ and offer to his hands 

AVhate'er his honor asks or heart daman 

His word the silver-footed queen attends, 155 

And from Olympus 5 snowy tops descends. 
ArrivM. she heard the voice of loud lament. 
And echoing groans that shook the lofty tent. 
His friends prepare the victim, and dispose 
Eepast unheeded, while he vents his woes. igo 

The goddess seats her by her pensive son; 
She press'cl his hand, and tender thus begun : 

" How long, unhappy ! shall thy sorrows flow ? 
And thy heart waste with life-consuming woe ? 
Mindless of food, or love, whose pleasing reign 105 

Soothes weary life, and softens human pain. 



BOOK XXIV. 103 

snatch the moments yet within thy power ; 

Not long to live, indulge the amorous hour ! 

Lo ! Jove himself (for Jove's command I bear) 

Forbids to tempt the wrath of heaven too far. 170 

No longer then (his fury if thou dread) 

Detain the relics of great Hector dead ; 

Nor vent on senseless earth thy vengeance vain, 

But yield to ransom, and restore the slain." 

To whom Achilles : " Be the ransom given, 175 

And we submit, since such the will of heaven." 

While thus they commun'd, from th' Olympian bowers 
Jove orders Iris to the Trojan towers: 
" Haste, winged goddess, to the sacred town, 
And urge her monarch to redeem his son ; iso 

Alone, the Ilian ramparts let him leave, 
And bear what stern Achilles may receive : 
Alone, for so we will : no Trojan near; 
Except, to place the dead with decent care, 
Some aged herald, who, with gentle hand, 185 

May the slow mules and funeral car command. 
Nor let him death, nor let him danger dread, 
Safe through the foe by our protection led : 
Him Hermes to Achilles shall convey, 
Guard of his life, and partner of his way. 190 

Fierce as he is, Achilles' self shall spare 
His age, nor touch one venerable hair : 
Some thought there must be in a soul so brave, 
Some sense of duty, some desire to save." 

Then down her bow the winged Iris drives, 195 



104 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

And swift at Priam's mournful court arrives : 
Where the sad sons beside their father's throne 
Sat bathed in tears, and answered groan with groan. 
And all amidst them lay the hoary sire 
(Sad scene of woe ! ), his face, his wrapp'd attire 200 

Conceal'd from sight ; with frantic hands he spread 
A shower of ashes o'er his neck and head. 
From room to room his pensive daughters roam : 
Whose shrieks and clamors fill the vaulted dome ; 
Mindful of those, who, late their pride and joy, 206 

Lie pale and breathless round the fields of Troy ! 
Before the king Jove's messenger appears, 
And thus in whispers greets his trembling ears : 

" Fear not, oh father ! no ill news 1 bear ; 
From Jove I come, Jove makes thee still his care; jio 
For Hector's sake these walls he bids thee leave, 
And bear what stern Achilles may receive : 
Alone, for so he wills : no Trojan near, 
Except, to place the dead with decent care, 
Some aged herald, who. witli gentle hand. 215 

May the slow mules and funeral ear command. 
Nor shalt thou death, nor shalt thou danger dread ; 
Safe through the foe by his protection led : 
Thee Hermes to Pelides shall convey, 
Guard of thy life, and partner of thy way. 220 

Fierce as he is, Achilles' self shall spare 
Thy age, nor touch one venerable hair : 
Some thought there must be in a soul so brave, 
Some sense of duty, some desire to save." 



BOOK XXIV. 105 

She spoke, and vanished. Priam bids prepare 225 

His gentle mules, and harness to the car ; 
There, for the gifts, a polish'd casket lay ; 
His pious sons the king's commands obey. 
Then pass'd the monarch to his bridal-room, 
Where cedar-beams the lofty roofs perfume, 230 

And where the treasures of his empire lay ; 
Then call'd his queen, and thus began to say 

" Unhappy consort of a king distressed ! 
Partake the troubles of thy husband's breast : 
I saw descend the messenger of Jove, 235 

Who bids me try Achilles' mind to move, 
Forsake these ramparts, and with gifts obtain 
The corse of Hector, at yon navy slain. 
Tell me thy thought : my heart impels to go 
Through hostile camps, and bears me to the foe." 240 

The hoary monarch thus : her piercing cries 
Sad Hecuba renews, and then replies : 
"Ah! whither wanders thy distemper'd mind; 
And where the prudence now that awed mankind, 
Through Phrygia once, and foreign regions known ? 245 
Now all confus'd, distracted, overthrown ! 
Singly to pass through hosts of foes ! to face 
(Oh heart of steel ! ) the murderer of thy race ! 
To view that deathful eye, and wander o'er 
Those hands, yet red with Hector's noble gore 250 

Alas ! my lord ! he knows not how to spare, 
And what his mercy, thy slain sons declare ; 
So brave ! so many f all'n ! to calm his rage 



106 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Vain were thy dignity, and vain thy age. 

No — pent in this sad palace, let us give 255 

To grief the wretched days we have to live. 

Still, still, for Hector let our sorrows flow, 

Born to his own, and to his parents' woe ! 

Doom'd from the hour his luckless life begun, 

To dogs, to vultures, and to Peleus' son ! 260 

Oh ! in his dearest blood might I allay 

My rage, and these barbarities repay ! 

For ah ! could Hector merit thus ? whose breath 

Expir'd not meanly, in inactive death : 

He pour'd his latest blood in manly fight, 205 

And fell a hero in his country's right." 

" Seek not to stay me, nor my bou! affright 
With words of omen, like a bird of night," 
(Eeplied unmovM the venerable man) : 
"'Tis heaven commands me, and you urge in vain. 
Had any mortal voice th' injunction laid, 
Nor augur, priest, nor seer had been obey'd. 
A present goddess brought the high command : 
I saw, I heard her. and the word shall stand. 
I go, ye gods ! obedient to your call : 2:5 

If in yon camp your powers have doomed my fall 
Content : by the same hand let me expire ! 
Add to the slaughtered son the wretched sire ! 
One cold embrace at least may be allow'd, 
And my last tears flow mingled with his blood ! " 

Forth from his open'd stores, this said, he drew 
Twelve costly carpets of refulgent hue ; 



BOOK XXIV. 107 

As many vests, as many mantles told, 

And twelve fair veils, and garments stiff with gold ; 

Two tripods next, and twice two chargers shine, 285 

With-ten pnre talents from the richest mine ; 

And last a large, well-labor' d bowl had place 

(The pledge of treaties once with friendly Thrace) 

Seemed all too mean the stores he could employ, 

For one last look to buy him back to Troy ! 290 

Lo ! the sad father, frantic with his pain, 
Around him furious drives his menial train : 
In vain each slave with duteous care attends, 
Each office hurts him, and each face offends. 
" What make ye here, officious crowds ! " (he cries) 295 
" Hence, nor obtrude your anguish on my eyes. 
Have ye no griefs at home, to fix ye there ? 
Am I the only object of despair ? 
Am I become my people's common show, 
Set up by Jove your spectacle of woe ? 300 

No, you must feel him too : yourselves must fall ; 
The same stern god to ruin gives you all : 
Nor is great Hector lost by me alone : 
Your sole defence, your guardian power, is gone 
I see your blood the fields of Phrygia drown ; 305 

I see the ruins of your smoking town ! 
Oh send me, gods, ere that sad day shall come, 
A willing ghost to Pluto's dreary dome ! " 

He said, and feebly drives his friends away : 
The sorrowing friends his frantic rage obey. 310 

Next on his sons his erring fury falls, 



108 THE ILIAJJ OF HOMER. 

Polites, Paris, Agathon, he calls ; 

His threats Deiphobus and Dius hear, 

Hippothous, Pammon, Helenus the seer, 

And generous Antiphon ; for yet these nine 315 

Survived, sad relics of his numerous line : 

"Inglorious sons of an unhappy sire ! 
Why did not all in Hector's cause expire ? 
Wretch that I am ! my bravest offspring slain, 
You, the disgrace of Priam's house, remain ! 320 

Mestor the brave, renowifd in ranks of war. 
With Troilus. dreadful on his rushing car, 
And last great Hector, more than man divine, 
For sure he seem'd not of terrestrial line ! 
All those relentless .Mars untimely slew. 
And left me these, a soft and servile crew. 
Whose days the feast and wanton dance employ, 
Gluttons and flatterers, the contempt of Troy ! 
Why teach ye not my rapid wheels to run. 
And speed my journey to redeem my Bon *.' " 330 

The sons their father's wretched age revere, 
Forgive his anger, and produce the car. 
High on the seat the cabinet they hind : 
The new-made car with solid beauty shin'd : 
Box was the yoke, emboss'd with costly pains, 335 

And hung with ringlets to receive the reins : 
Nine cubits long, the traces swept the ground ; 
These to the chariot's polish'd pole they bound. 
Then fix'd a ring the running reins to guide, 
And, close beneath, the gather'd ends were tied. 340 



BOOK XXIV. 109 

Next with the gifts (the price of Hector slain) 
The sad attendants load the groaning wain : 
Last to the yoke the well-match' d mules they bring 
(The gift of Mysia to the Trojan king). 
But the fair horses, long his darling care, 345 

Himself received, and harness'd to his car : 
Griev'd as he was, he not this task denied ; 
The hoary herald help'd him at his side. 
While careful these the gentle coursers join'd, 
Sad Hecuba approached with anxious mind ; 350 

A golden bowl, that foam'd with fragrant wine 
(Libation destin'd to the power divine), 
Held in her right, before the steeds she stands, 
And thus consigns it to the monarch's hands : 
" Take this, and pour to Jove ; that, safe from harms, 353 
His grace restore thee to our roof and arms. 
Since, victor of thy fears, and slighting mine, 
Heaven, or thy soul, inspire this bold design, 
Pray to that God, who, high on Ida's brow 
Surveys thy desolated realms below, 360 

His winged messenger to send from high, 
And lead the way with heavenly augury : 
Let the strong sovereign of the plumy race 
Tower on the right of yon ethereal space. 
That sign beheld, and strengthen' d from above, 365 

Boldly pursue the journey mark'd by Jove ; 
But if the god his augury denies, 
Suppress thy impulse, nor reject advice." 
" 'Tis just " (said Priam) " to the Sire above 



110 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

To raise our hands ; for who so good as Jove ? " 370 

He spoke, and bade th' attendant handmaid bring 

The purest water of the living spring 

(Her ready hands the ewer and basin held) ; 

Then took the golden cup his queen had fill'd ; 

On the mid pavement pours the rosy wine, 

Uplifts his eyes, and calls the power divine : 
" Oh first and greatest ! heaven's imperial lord ! 

On lofty Ida's holy hill ador'd ! 

To stern Achilles now direct my ways. 

And teach him mercy when a father prays. 380 

If such thy will, despatch from yonder sky 

Thy sacred bird, celestial augury ! 

Let the strong sovereign of the plumy race 

Tower on the right of yon ethereal space : 

So shall thy suppliant, strengthen^ from above, 

Fearless pursue the journey niark'd by Jove." 

Jove heard his prayer, and from the throne on high 

Despatch'd his bird, celestial augury ! 

The swift-winged chaser of the feather'd game, 

And known to gods by Percnos' lofty name. 

Wide as appears some palace-gate display'd, 

So broad his pinions stretehM their ample shade. 

As, stooping dexter with resounding wings, 

Th' imperial bird descends in airy rings. 

A dawn of joy in every face appears ; 

The mourning matron dries her timorous tears. 

Swift on his car th' impatient monarch sprung; 

The brazen portal in his passage rung. 



o'.'O 



BOOK XXIV. Ill 

The mules preceding draw the loaded wain, 

Charged with the gifts ; Idaeus holds the rein : 400 

The king himself his gentle steeds controls, 

And through surrounding friends the chariot rolls ; 

On his slow wheels the following people wait, 

Mourn at each step, and give him up to fate ; 

With hands uplifted, eye him as he pass'd, 405 

And gaze upon him as they gaz'd their last. 

Now forward fares the father on his way, 
Througli the lone fields, and back to Ilion they. 
Great Jove beheld him as he cross'd the plain, 
And felt the woes of miserable man. 410 

Then thus to Hermes : " Thou, whose constant cares 
Still succor mortals, and attend their prayers ! 
Behold an object to thy charge consigned ; 
If ever pity touch'd thee for mankind, 
Go, guard the sire ; th' observing foe prevent, 415 

And safe conduct him to Achilles' tent/' 

The god obeys, his golden pinions binds, 
And mounts incumbent on the wings of winds, 
That high through fields of air his flight sustain, 
O'er the wide earth, and o'er the boundless main 420 

Then grasps the wand that causes sleep to fly, 
Or in soft slumbers seals the wakeful eye : 
Thus arm'd, swift Hermes steers his airy way, 
And stoops on Hellespont's resounding sea. 
A beauteous youth, majestic and divine, 425 

He seem'd ; fair offspring of some princely line ! 
Now twilight veil'd the glaring face of day, 



112 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

And clad the dusky fields in sober gray ; 

What time the herald and the hoary king, 

Their chariot stopping at the silver spring, 430 

That circling Ilus' ancient marble flows, 

Allow'd their mules and steeds a short repose. 

Through the dim shade the herald first espies 

A man's approach, and thus to Priam cries : 

"I mark some foe's advance: king ! beware; 435 

This hard adventure claims thy utmost care; 

For much I fear destruction hovers nigh : 

Our state asks counsel. Is it best to fly ? 

Or, old and helpless, at his Feel to fall 

(Two wretched suppliants), and for mercy call?" 440 

Th' afflicted monarch BhiverM with despair; 
Pale grew his face, and upright stood his hair; 
Sunk was his hearl : his color went and came; 
A sudden trembling shook his aged Frame : 
When Hermes, greeting, touchM his royal hand, 44:. 

And, gentle, thus accosts with kind demand: 

" Say whither, father! when each mortal Bight 
Is seal'd in sleep, thou wander'st through the night ? 
Why roam thy mules and steeds the plains along. 
Through Grecian foes, so numerous and so strong ? ise 
What couldst thou hope, shouldst these thy treasures 

view : 
These, who with endless hate thy race pursue? 
For what defence, alas ! couldst thou provide ? 
Thyself not young, a weak old man thy guide. 
Yet suffer not thy soul to sink with dread ; 405 



BOOK XXIV. 113 

From me no harm shall touch thy reverend head : 
From Greece I'll guard thee too ; for in those lines 
The living image of my father shines. " 

" Thy words, that speak benevolence of mind, 
Are true my son ! " (the godlike sire rejoin'd:) 4co 

" Great are my hazards ; but the gods survey 
My steps and send thee, guardian of my way. 
Hail ! and be blest ; for scarce of mortal kind 
Appear thy form, thy feature, and thy mind." 

"Nor true are all thy words, nor erring wide/' 465 

(The sacred messenger of heaven replied) : 
" But say, convey'st thou through the lonely plains 
What yet most precious of thy store remains, 
To lodge in safety with some friendly hand ? 
Prepared perchance to leave thy native land ? 470 

Or fly'st thou now ? What hopes can Troy retain, 
Thy matchless son, her guard and glory, slain ? " 

The king, alarm'd : " Say what, and whence thou art, 
Who search the sorrows of a parent's heart, 
And know so well how godlike Hector died ? " 475 

Thus Priam spoke, and Hermes thus replied : 

" You tempt me, father, and with pity touch : 
On this sad subject you inquire too much. 
Oft have these eyes the godlike Hector view'd 
In glorious fight, with Grecian blood imbrued : 480 

I saw him, when, like Jove, his flames he toss'cl 
On thousand ships, and withered half a host. 
I saw, but help'd not, stern Achilles' ire 
Forbade assistance, and enjoy'd the fire. 



114 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

For him I serve, of Myrmidonian race ; 485 

One ship convey'd us from our native place ; 

Polyctor is my sire, an honor 'd name, 

Old, like thyself, and not unknown to fame ; 

Of seven his sons, by whom the lot was cast 

To serve our prince, it fell on me the la 400 

To watch this quarter my adventure falls; 

For with the morn the Greeks attack your walls; 

Sleepless they sit, impatient to engage, 

And scarce their rulers check their martial rag 

"If then thou art of stem Pelides' train " 
(The mournful monarch thus rejoin'd again), 
"All, tell me truly, where, oh ! where are laid 
My son's dear relies ? what befalls him dead f 
Have dogs dismember'd on the naked plains. 
Or yet unmangled rest, his cold remains? 11 

"0 favor'd of the skies ! " dims answer'd then 
The power that mediates between gods and men), 
"Nor dogs, nor vultures, have thy Hector rent. 
But whole he lies, neglected in the tent: 
This the twelfth evening since he rested there, 
Untouch M by worms, untainted by the air. 
Still as Aurora's ruddy beam is spread. 

Round his friend's tomb Achilles drags the dead: 

Yet undisfigur'd, or in limb or face. 

All fresh he lies, with every living grace, r.n> 

Majestical in death ! No stains are found 

O'er all the corse, and closed is every wound 

Though many a wound they gave. Some heavenly care, 



BOOK XXIV. 115 

Some hand divine, preserves him ever fair : 

Or all the host of heaven, to whom he led 515 

A life so grateful, still regard him dead." 

Thus spoke to Priam the celestial guide, 
And joyful thus the royal sire replied : 
" Bless'd is the man who pays the gods above 
The constant tribute of respect and love ! 520 

Those who inhabit the Olympian bower 
My son forgot not, in exalted power ; 
And Heaven, that every virtue bears in mind, 
E'en to the ashes of the just is kind. 
But thou, oh generous youth ! this goblet take, 525 

A pledge of gratitude for Hector's sake ; 
And while the favoring gods our steps survey, 
Safe to Pelides' tent conduct my way." 

To whom the latent god : " king, forbear 
To tempt my youth, for apt is youth to err : 530 

But can I, absent from my prince's sight, 
Take gifts in secret, that must shun the light ? 
What from our master's interest thus we draw, 
Is but a licens'd theft that 'scapes the law. 
Respecting him, my soul abjures th' offence ; 535 

And, as the crime, I dread the consequence. 
Thee, far as Argos, pleas'd I could convey ; 
Guard of thy life, and partner of thy way : 
On thee attend, thy safety to maintain, 
O'er pathless forests, or the roaring main." 540 

He said, then took the chariot at a bound, 
And snatch'd the reins, and whiii'd the lash around : 



116 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Before th' inspiring god that urged them on 

The coursers fly, with spirit not their own. 

And now they reaclrd the naval walls, and found 54.-. 

The guards repasting, while the bowls go round : 

On these the virtue of his wand he tries, 

And pours deep slumber on their watchful eyes : 

Then heav'd the massy gates, remov'd the bars. 

And o'er the trenches led the rolling cars. 

Unseen, through all the hostile camp they went. 

And now approach'd Pelides' lofty tent. 

Of fir the roof was rais'd, and coverM o'er 

With reeds collected from the marshy shore; 

And, fenced with palisades, a hall of state 

(The work of soldiers), where the hero sat. 

Large was the door, whose well-compacted strength 

A solid pine-tree barr'd of wondrous length; 

Scarce three strong Greeks could lift its mighty weight, 

But great Achilles singly (dosed the gate. r.oo 

This Hermes (such the power of gods) set wide; 

Then swift alighted the celestial guide. 

And thus, revealM : "Hear prince! and understand 

Thou ow'st thy guidance to no mortal hand ; 

Hermes I am, descended from above. 565 

The king of arts, the messenger of Jove. 

Farewell : to shun Achilles' sight I fly; 

Uncommon are such favors of the sky, 

Nor stand confess'd to frail mortality. 

Now fearless enter, and prefer thy prayers; 570 

Adjure hirn by his father's silver hairs, 



BOOK XXIV. 117 

His son, his mother ! urge him to bestow 
Whatever pity that stern heart can know." 

Thus having said, he vanished from his eyes, 
And in a moment shot into the skies : 575 

The king, confirmed from heaven, alighted there, 
And left his aged herald on the car. 
With solemn pace through various rooms he went, 
And found Achilles in his inner tent : 
There sat the hero ; Alcimus the brave, 580 

And great Automedon, attendance gave ; 
These served his person at the royal feast ; 
Around, at awful distance, stood the rest. 

Unseen by these, the king his entry made ; 
And, prostrate now before Achilles laid, 585 

Sudden (a venerable sight ! ) appears ; 
Embraced his knees, and batlrd his hands m tears , 
Those direful hands his kisses press'd, imbrued 
E'en with the best, the dearest of his blood ! 

As when a wretch (who, conscious of his crime, 590 
Pursued for murder, flies his native clime) 
Just gains some frontier, breathless, pale, amaz'd ! 
All gaze, all wonder : thus Achilles gaz'd : 
Thus stood tli' attendants stupid with surprise : 
All mute, yet seeni'd to question with their eyes : 595 
Each looked on other, none the silence broke, 
Till thus at last the kingly suppliant spoke : 

" Ah think, thou f avor'd of the powers divine ! 
Think of thy father's age, and pity mine ! 
In me, that father's reverend image trace, 600 



118 



THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 



Those silver hairs, that venerable face ; 

His trembling limbs, his helpless person, see ! 

In all my equal, but in misery ! 

Yet now, perhaps, some turn of human fate 

Expels him helpless from his peaceful state ; 605 

Think, from some powerful foe thou see'st him fly, 

And beg protection with a feeble cry. 

Yet still one comfort in his soul may rise ; 

He hears his son still lives to glad his eyes ; 

And, hearing,. still may hope a better day gio 

May send him thee, to chase that foe away. 

No comfort to my grid's, no hopes remain, 

The best, the bravest of my sons are slain ! 

Yet what a race ! ere (Jreece to Ilion came, 

The pledge of many a lov'd and loving dame ! 816 

Nineteen one mother bore — Dead, all are dead! 

How oft, alas! has wretched Priam bled ! 

Still one was left, their loss to recompense; 

His father's hope, his country's last defence. 

Him too thy rage has slain ! beneath thy steel, 

Unhappy, in his country's cause, he fell! 

For him, through hostile camps I bent my way, 

For him thus prostrate at thy feet I lay: 

Large gifts, proportional to thy wrath. 1 bear: 

0, hear the wretched, and the gods revere ! c-2:> 

Think of thy father, and this face behold ! 

See him in me, as helpless and as old ; 

Though not so wretched : there he yields to me, 

The first of men in sovereign misery. 



BOOK XXIV. 119 

Thus forced to kneel, thus groveling to embrace, 630 

The scourge and ruin of my realm and race : 
Suppliant my children's murderer to implore. 
And kiss those hands yet reeking with their gore ! " 

These words soft pity in the chief inspire, 
Touched with the dear remembrance of his sire. 635 

Then with his hand (as prostrate still he lay) 
The old man's cheek he gently turn'd away. 
Now each by turns indulged the gush of woe ; 
And now the mingled tides together flow : 
This low on earth, that gently bending o'er, 640 

A father one, and one a son deplore : 
But great Achilles different passions rend, 
And now his sire he mourns, and now his friend. 
Th' infectious softness through the heroes ran ; 
One universal solemn shower began ; uo 

They bore as heroes, but they felt as man. 

Satiate at length with unavailing woes, 
From the high throne divine Achilles rose ; 
The reverend monarch by the hand he rais'd ; 
On his white beard and form majestic gaz'd, 650 

Not unrelenting : then serene began 
With words to soothe the miserable man : 

" Alas ! what weight of anguish hast thou known, 
Unhappy prince ! thus guardless and alone 
To pass through foes, and thus undaunted face 655 

The man whose fury has destroy'd thy race ! 
Heaven sure has armVl thee with a heart of steel, 
A strength proportion'd to the woes you feel. 



120 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Eise then : let reason mitigate our care : 

To mourn, avails not : man is born to bear. 660 

Such is, alas ! the gods' severe decree ; 

They, only they, are blest, and only free. 

Two urns by Jove's high throne have ever stood, 

The source of evil one, and one of good ; 

From thence the cup of mortal man he tills, 

Blessings to these, to those distributes ills ; 

To most he mingles both : the wretch decreed 

To taste the bad, unmix'd, is curs'd indeed: 

Pursued by wrongs, by meagre famine driven, 

He wanders, outcast both of earth and heaven. gto 

The happiest taste not happiness sincere, 

But find the cordial draught is dash'd with care. 

Who more than Peleus shone in wealth and power ? 

What stars concurring bless'd his natal hour! 

A realm, a goddess, to his wishes given, 

Graced by the gods with all the gifts of heaven ! 

One evil, yet, o'ertakes his latest day ; 

No race succeeding to imperial sway : 

An only son ! and he (alas !) ordain'd 

To fall untimely in a foreign land ! 680 

See him, in Troy, the pious care decline 

Of his weak age, to live the curse of thine ! 

Thou too, old man. hast happier days beheld 

In riches once, in children once excell'd ; 

Extended Phrygia own'd thy ample reign, 685 

And all fair Lesbos' blissful seats contain, 

And all wide Hellespont's unmeasured main. 



_ 



BOOK XXIV. 121 

But since the god his hand has pleas'd to turn, 

And fill thy measure from his bitter urn, 

What sees the sun, but hapless heroes' falls ? 690 

War, and the blood of men, surround thy walls ! 

What must be, must be. Bear thy lot, nor shed 

These unavailing sorrows o'er the dead ; 

Thou canst not call him from the Stygian shore, 

But thou, alas ! may'st live to suffer more ! " 695 

To whom the king : " favor'd of the skies ! 
Here let me grow to earth ! since Hector lies 
On the bare beach, deprived of obsequies. 
give me Hector : to my eyes restore 
His corse, and take the gifts : I ask no more ! too 

Thou, as thou may'st, these boundless stores enjoy; 
Safe inay'st thou sail, and turn thy wrath from Troy ; 
So shall thy pity and forbearance give 
A weak old man to see the light, and live ! " 

"Move me no more " (Achilles thus replies, 705 

While kindling anger sparkled in his eyes), 
" Nor seek by tears my steady soul to bend ; 
To yield thy Hector I myself intend : 
For know, from Jove my goddess-mother came 
(Old Ocean's daughter, silver-footed dame) ; 710 

Nor com'st thou but b} T heaven ; nor conrst alone ; 
Some god impels with courage not thy own : 
No human hand the weighty gates unbarr'd, 
Nor could the boldest of our youth have dar'd 
To pass our out-works, or^elude the guard. 715 

Cease ; lest, neglectful of high Jove's command, 



122 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

I show thee, king ! thou tread'st on hostile land ; 
Eelease my knees, thy suppliant arts give o'er, 
And shake the purpose of my soul no more." 

The sire obey'd him, trembling and o'eraw'd. 720 

Achilles, like a lion, rush'd abroad ; 
Automedon and Alcimus attend, 
Whom most he honor'd, since he lost his friend ; 
These to unyoke the mules and horses went, 
And led the hoary herald to the tent : 736 

Next, heap'd on high, the numerous presents bear 
(Great Hector's ransom) from the polish'd car. 
Two splendid mantles, and a carpet spread, 
They leave, to cover and enwrap the dead : 
Then call the handmaids, with assistant toil 730 

To wash the body, and anoint with oil. 
Apart from Priam ; lest th* unhappy sire, 
Provok'd to passion, once more rouse to ire 
The stern Pelides ; and nor sacred age, 
Nor Jove's command, should check the rising rage, 1 :> 
This done, the garments o'er the corse they spread ; 
Achilles lifts it to the funeral bed : 
Then, while the body on the car they laid, 
He groans, and calls on lov'd Patroclus' shade : 

"If, in that gloom which never light must know, 740 
The deeds of mortals touch the ghosts below ; 
friend ! forgive me, that I thus fulfil 
(Restoring Hector) heaven's unquestionM will. 
The gifts the father gave, be ever thine, 
To grace thy manes, and adorn thy shrine." 745 









BOOK XXIV. 123 

He said, and, entering, took his seat of state, 
Where full before him reverend Priam sat : 
To whom, composed, the godlike chief begun : 
" Lo ! to thy prayer restored, thy breathless son ; 
Extended on the funeral couch he lies ; 750 

And, soon as morning paints the eastern skies, 
The sight is granted to thy longing eyes. 
But now the peaceful hours of sacred night 
Demand refection, and to rest invite : 
Nor thou, father ! thus consumed with woe, 755 

The common cares that nourish life forego. 
Not thus did Niobe, of form divine, 
A parent once, whose sorrows equalled thine : 
Six youthful sons, as many blooming maids, 
In one sad day beheld the Stygian shades : 760 

Those by Apollo's silver bow were slain, 
These, Cynthia's arrows stretch' d upon the plain. 
So was her pride chastis'd by wrath divine, 
Who match' d her own with bright Latona's line ; 
But two the goddess, twelve the queen enjoy 'd ; 765 

Those boasted twelve th' avenging two destroyed. 
Steep'd in their blood, and in the dust outspread, 
Nine days, neglected, lay expos'd the dead ; 
None by to weep them, to inhume them none 
(For Jove had turn'd the nation all to stone) ; 770 

The gods themselves, at length, relenting, gave 
Th ? unhappy race the honors of a grave. 
Herself a rock (for such was heaven's high will) 
Through deserts wild now pours a weeping rill ; 



124 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Where round the bed whence Achelotis springs, 775 

The watery fairies dance in mazy rings : 

There, high on Sipylus's shady brow, 

She stands, her own sad monument of woe ; 

The rock for ever lasts, the tears for ever flow. 

Such griefs, king ! have other parents known : 780 

Remember theirs, and mitigate thy own. 

The care of heaven thy Hector has appeared ; 

Nor shall he lie unwept, and uninterr'd ; 

Soon may thy aged cheeks in tears be drown'd, 

And all the eyes of Ilion stream around.'' 785 

He said, and, rising, chose the victim ewe 
With silver fleece, which his attendants slew. 
The limbs they sever from the reeking hide, 
With skill prepare them, and in parts divide 
Each on the coals the separate morsels lavs. :..<» 

And hasty snatches from the rising blaze. 
With bread the glittering canisters they load. 
Which round the board Antoniedon bestow'd : 
The chief himself to each his portion plac'd, 
And each indulging shar'd in sweet repast 
When now the rage of hunger was repressed, 
The wondering hero eyes his royal guest ; 
No less the royal guest the hero eyes, 
His godlike aspect, and majestic size ; 
Here, youthful grace and noble fire engage, soo 

And there, the mild benevolence of age. 
Thus gazing long, the silence neither broke ; 
(A solemn scene !) at length the father spoke : 



BOOK XXIV. 125 

" Permit me now, belov'd of Jove, to steep 
My careful temples in the dew of sleep : 805 

For since the day that numbered with the dead 
My hapless son, the dust has been my bed ; 
Soft sleep a stranger to my weeping eyes, 
My only food, my sorrows and my sighs ! 
Till now, encouraged by the grace you give, 8io 

I share thy banquet, and consent to live." 

With that, Achilles bade prepare the bed, 
With purple soft, and shaggy carpets spread. 
Forth, by the flaming lights, they bend their way, 
And place the couches, and the coverings lay. 815 

Then he : " Now, father, sleep, but sleep not here, 
Consult thy safety, and forgive my fear, 
Lest any Argive (at this hour awake, 
To ask our counsel, or our orders take), 
Approaching sudden to our open tent, 820 

Perchance behold thee, and our grace prevent. 
Should such report thy honord person here, 
The king of men the ransom might defer. 
But say with speed, if aught of thy desire 
Remains unask'd, what time the rites require 825 

T' inter thy Hector ? For, so long we stay 
Our slaughtering arm, and bid the hosts obey." 

" If then thy will permit " (the monarch said), 
" To finish all due honors to the dead, 
This, of thy grace, accord : to thee are known 830 

The fears of Ilion, clos'd within her town ; 
And at what distance from our walls aspire 



126 THE ILIAD OF HOMEK. 

The hills of Ide, and forests for the fire. 

Nine days to vent our sorrows I request, 

The tenth shall see the funeral and the feast; 833 

The next, to raise his monument be given ; 

The twelfth we war, if war be doom'd by heaven !*' 

" This thy request " (replied the chief), " enjoy : 
Till then, our arms suspend the fall of Troy." 

Then gave his hand at parting, to prevent mo 

The old man's fears, and turn'd within the tent ; 
Where fair Briseis, bright in blooming charms, 
Expects her hero with desiring arms. 
But in the porch the kin-- and herald rest, 
Sad dreams of care vet wandering in their breast. 843 

Now gods and men the g^fts of sleep partake; 
Industrious Hermes only was awake, 
The king's return revolving in his mind, 
To pass the ramparts, and the watch to blind. 
Thr power descending hover'd o'er his head, sso 

And, " Sleep'st thou, father ? " (thus the vision said :) 
"Now dost thou sleep, when Hector is restored ? 
Nor fear the Grecian iocs, or Grecian lord? 
Thy presence here should stern At rides 
Thy still-surviving sons may sue for thee; 855 

May offer all thy treasures yet contain. 
To spare thy age ; and offer all in vain." 

Wak'd with the word, the trembling sire arose, 
And rais'd his friend : the god before him goes : 
He joins the mules, directs them with his hand, 860 

And moves in silence through the hostile land. 



BOOK XXIV. 127 

When now to Xanthus' yellow stream they drove 

(Xanthus, immortal progeny of Jove), 

The winged deity forsook their view, 

And in a moment to Olympus flew. 865 

Now shed Aurora round her saffron ray, 
Sprung through the gates of light, and gave the day. 
Charged with their mournful load to Ilion go 
The sage and king, majestically slow. 
Cassandra first beholds, from Ilion's spire, 870 

The sad procession of her hoary sire ; 
Then, as the pensive pomp advanced more near 
(Her breathless brother stretched upon the bier), 
A shower of tears overflows her beauteous eyes, 
Alarming thus all Ilion with her cries : 875 

" Turn here your steps, and here your eyes employ, 
Ye wretched daughters, and ye sons of Troy ! 
If e'er ye rush/d in crowds, with vast delight, 
To hail your hero glorious from the fight ; 
Now meet him dead, and let your sorrows flow ! sso 

Your common triumph, and your common woe." 

In thronging crowds they issue to the plains, 
Nor man, nor woman, in the walls remains : 
In every face the self-same grief is shown, 
And Troy sends forth one universal groan. 885 

At Scsea's gates, they meet the mourning wain, 
Hang on the wheels, and grovel round the slain. 
The wife and mother, frantic with despair, 
Kiss his pale cheek, and rend their scattered hair ; 
Thus wildly wailing, at the gates they lay ; 890 



128 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

And there had sigh'd and sorrow'd out the day 

But godlike Priam from the chariot rose ; 

" Forbear " (he cried), " this violence of woes ; 

First to the palace let the car proceed, 

Then pour your boundless sorrows o'er the dead.' 1 895 

The waves of people at his word divide ; 
Slow rolls the chariot through the following tide : 
E'en to the palace the sad pomp they wait : 
They weep, and place him on the bed of state. 
A melancholy choir attend around. 
With plaintive sighs and music's solemn sound: 
Alternately they Bing, alternate flow 
Th' obedient tears, melodious in their w< 
While deeper sorrows groan from each full heart, 
And nature speaks at every pause of art. ou:> 

First to the corse the weeping consort flew; 
Around his neck her milk-white arms she threw : 
And, -Oh my Hector! oli my lord !" she cries, 
k - Snatch'd in thy bloom from these desiring eyes ! 
Thou to the dismal realms for ever gone ! 910 

And I abandon'd, desolate, alone ! 
An only son, once comfort of our pains, 
Sad product now of hapless love, remains ! 
Never to- manly age that son shall rise, 
Or with increasing graces glad my eyes; »15 

For Ilion now (her great defender slain) 
Shall sink a smoking ruin on the plain. 
Who now protects her wives with guardian care ? 
Who saves her infants from the rage of war ? 



BOOK XXIV. 129 

Now hostile fleets must waft those infants o'er 920 

(Those wives must wait them) to a foreign shore ! 

Thou too, my son ! to barbarous climes shalt go, 

The sad companion of thy mother's woe ; 

Driven hence a slave before the victor's sword, 

Condemned to toil for some inhuman lord : 925 

Or else some Greek, whose father press'd the plain, 

Or son, or brother, by great Hector slain, 

In Hector's blood his vengeance shall enjoy, 

And hurl thee headlong from the towers of Troy. 

For thy stern father never spar'd a foe : 930 

Thence all these tears, and all this scene of woe ! 

Thence, many evils his sad parents bore, 

His parents many, but his consort more. 

Why gav'st thou not to me thy dying hand ? 

And why received not I thy last command ? 935 

Some word thou wouldst have spoke, which, sadly dear, 

My soul might keep, or utter with a tear ; 

Which never, never could be lost in air, 

Fix'd in my heart, and oft repeated there ! " 

Thus to her weeping maids she makes her moan : 940 
Her weeping handmaids echo groan for groan. 

The mournful mother next sustains her part : 
" thou, the best, the dearest to my heart ! 
Of all my race thou most by heaven approv'd, 
And by th' immortals ev'n in death belov'd ! 945 

While all my other sons in barbarous bands 
Achilles bound, and sold to foreign lands, 
This felt no chains, but went, a glorious ghost, 



130 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Free, and a hero, to the Stygian coast. 

Sentenced, 'tis true, by his inhuman doom, 950 

Thy noble corse was dragg'd around the tomb 

(The tomb of him thy warlike arm had slain) ; 

Ungenerous insult, impotent and vain ! 

Yet glow'st thou fresh with every living grace, 

No mark of pain, or violence of face ; 955 

Rosy and fair ! as Phoebus' silver bow 

Dismissed thee gently to the shades below ! w 

Thus spoke the dame, and melted into tears. 
Sad Helen next in pomp of grief appears : 
Fast from the shining sluices of her ey< 9G0 

Fall the round crystal drops, while thus she cries: 
" Ah, dearest friend ! in whom the gods had join'd 
The mildest manners with the bravest mind ! 
Now twice ten years (unhappy years) are o'er 
Since Paris brought me to the Trojan shore; 
(Oh had I perish'd. ere that form divine 
Seduced this soft, this easy heart of mine!) 
Yet was it ne'er my fate from thee to find 
A deed ungentle, or a word unkind: 

When others eurs'd the authoress of their woe, 970 

Thy pity check'd my sorrows in their flow : 
If some proud brother ey'd me with disdain, 
Or scornful sister with her sweeping train, 
Thy gentle accents soften'd all my pain. 
For thee I mourn ; and mourn myself in thee, 975 

The wretched source of all this misery ! 
The fate I caus'd, for ever I bemoan ; 



BOOK XXIV. 131 

Sad Helen has no friend, now thou art gone ! 
Through Troy's wide streets abandoned shall I roam, 
In Troy deserted, as abhorr'd at home ! " 980 

So spoke the fair, with sorrow-streaming eye : 
Distressful beauty melts each stander-by ; 
On all around th' infectious sorrow grows ; 
But Priam checked the torrent as it rose : 
"Perform, ye Trojans ! what the rites require, 985 

And fell the forests for a funeral pyre ! 
Twelve days nor foes nor secret ambush dread ; 
Achilles grants these honors to the dead." 

He spoke ; and at his word the Trojan train 
Their mules and oxen harness to the wain, 990 

Pour through the gates, and, fell'd from Ida's crown, 
Roll back the gather'd forests to the town. 
These toils continue nine succeeding days, 
And high in air a sylvan structure raise. 
But when the tenth fair morn began to shine, 995 

Forth to the pile was borne the man divine, 
And plac'd aloft : while all, with streaming eyes, 
Beheld the flames and rolling smokes arise. 

Soon as Aurora, daughter of the dawn, 
With rosy lustre streak'd the dewy lawn, 1000 

Again the mournful crowds surround the pyre, 
And quench with wine the yet-remaining fire. 
The snowy bones his friends and brothers place 
(With tears collected) in a golden vase ; 
The golden vase in purple palls they rolPd, 1005 

Of softest texture, and inwrought with gold. 



132 



THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 



Last, o'er the urn the sacred earth they spread, 

And rais'd the tomb, memorial of the dead. 

(Strong guards and spies, till all the rites were done, 

Watch'd from the rising to the setting sun.) 1010 

All Troy then moves to Priam's court again, 

A solemn, silent, melancholy train : 

Assembled there, from pious toil they rest, 

And sadly shar'd the last sepulchral feast. 

Such honors Ilion to her hero paid, 1015 

And peaceful slept the mighty Hector's shade. 



NOTES. 



BOOK I. 

Line 1. Achilles. For this and all other important proper names, 
see the dictionary appended. Wrath. This is the key-note to the 
entire poem. A woman was the cause of the war, a woman is the 
cause of Agamemnon's quarrel with Achilles. 

2. Heavenly Goddess. The idea of the nine Muses is later 
than Homer, and the words here are used in a merely general sense. 
For a similar invocation, cf. Milton's " Paradise Lost," Book I., 
line 6. 

5. Naked. Bare of verdure, barren; with the idea of loneli- 
ness. Cf . line 427, below. 

6. Vultures. Pope is here more exact than Homer, as well as 
more specific, who says, "all kinds of birds." 

11. Latona's son. Apollo. Here the author, who first invoked 
the Muse as the Goddess of Memory, vanishes from the reader's 
view, and leaves her to relate the whole affair through the poem, 
whose presence from this time diffuses an air of majesty over the 
relation. And lest this should be lost to our thoughts in the contin- 
uation of the story, he sometimes refreshes them with a new invoca- 
tion at proper intervals. [Pope's Note.] 

13. The king of men. Agamemnon. 

16. In this and similar allusions it is evident that the hearer is 
supposed to be familiar with the general history of the siege and the 
chief actors. It may be said here that the human interest is the 
principal theme of the poet, and that the historical is little more 
than a background. Similarly, information as to the scene and 
season can be gathered only as the story unfolds. 

18. Awful ensigns. Apollo is occasionally represented with a 
lyre, but here are meant the bow and arrows. Cf. line 59, below .. 

133 ' 



134 THE ILIAD OF HOMEB. 

20. Laurel crown. An instance of Pope's variation from the 
Greek. In the original the word here used means " bands of wool " 
usually worn on the head, and here carried on the sceptre be* 
Chryses has come as a suppliant. 

22. The brother-kings. Agamemnon and Menelaus. 

32. The fair. The maiden. In Pope's day any poet aiming at 
dignity followed an accepted type of Bet phrases and artificial dic- 
tion. Thus women were either " nymphs," or (as here) " the fair; " 
shepherds became " conscious swains:" and a perfectly inoffensive 
bird could not sing, bul must " pour his throat." It was an attempt 
to give some poetical dignity to what was often only average prose. 

50. Sounding. The Greek word here used Ls untranslatable by 
any single word in English, and has also a very marked onomato- 
poetic quality; it may be render.-. 1 "loud roar; 

51. Safe at distance. At a safe distant 

64. His silver shafts. The Olympian deities all have golden 

weapons and ornaments, Save Apollo and Diana, who, as the divini- 
ties of the Son and the moon, are always spoken of as armed with 
silver. 

CM Heiaclides PonticUS, in his most el. --ant treatise on the Alle- 
gories of Homer, remarks that the most accurate observations of 

physicians and philosophers unite in testifying the commencement 

of pe8tilentia] disorders to be exhibited in the havoc of four-footed 
animals. [Pern's NOTE.] 

71. Dusky air. Homer again shows his knowledge of the 
natural phenomena attending plagues, ('f. also Line 42, Book XXII. 
Kipling's ballad "The Sacrifice of BSr-Heb" contains some tine lines 
descriptive of this atmospheric state. 

72. Pyres. Funeral fires. The burning of human corpses ap- 
peals to have been a general practice in early times, with three 
exceptions: Egypt, where they were embalmed : Judea, where they 
were laid away in sepulchres ; and China, where they were buried 
in the earth. 

75. Achilles, it appears, had. as one of the principal leaders, the 
right of calling a public assembly : he does so again in Book XIX. 

16. The goddess had two reasons for her partiality to the ( in. k-: 
first, because she was in such high repute in Argos, that the whole 
country was said to be her temple ; secondly, because Paris had 









NOTES — BOOK L 135 

decided against her when she stood candidate with Minerva and 
Venus for the prize of beauty. Minerva on the latter account patro- 
nized them also. [Cowper's Note.] And cf. Book XXIV., lines 
38-41. 

86. The ancient belief in the divine origin and import of dreams 
is too well known to deserve emphasis. A comparatively modern 
and familiar instance is to be found in the opening of "The Lady 
of the Lake," canto iv. 

88. Hecatombs. Literally, a hundred oxen offered in sacrifice, 
but often used in a general sense. Eighty-one is the largest number 
mentioned in Homer as actually offered. 

89. Notice the emphatic position of " aton'd " and " dying." 

91. He said and sat. A good instance of Pope's terseness. 
Homer here uses seven words for the same idea. 

108. Control. Reserve. 

109. Who rules the day. Phoebus Apollo. 

129. Choler. The bile. Anger, joy, fear, and love were formerly 
supposed to be produced by excess or disturbance of this fluid. 

146. Our cares. This use of the plural form of the pronoun is 
common to royalty. Cf . also lines 382 and 425, below. 

156. Covetousness seems to have been one of the vices in Aga- 
memnon's character, for Thersites reproaches him with it (Book II.), 
and Mercury warns Priam of it (Book XXIV., lines 854-858). But 
here it is also to be remembered that with the Greeks the " point of 
honor" generally lay in the gift. Thus, in Book XXIV., Achilles 
takes a ransom for Hector's body. 

158. The first ten years of the war had been spent mostly in raids 
upon the lesser cities of the Troad, of which Achilles alone boasts to 
have destroyed twenty-three. Chryse'is and Brise'is had been cap- 
tured in this way. 

161. Resume. Used in the strict derivative sense, "to take 
back." 

175. Or grant. Either grant, etc. A very common use in Pope's 
time, and still allowable in poetry. Cf. Book VI., line 577; Book 
XXII., line 311. 

177. Tecmessa had been awarded to Ajax, Laodice to Ulysses. 

178. I think the legal pretence for Agamemnon's seizing Brise'is 
must have been founded upon that law whereby the commander-in- 



136 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

chief had the power of taking what part of the prey he pleased for 
his own use; and he, being obliged to restore what he had taken, it 
seemed but just that he should have a second choice. [Pop] 
Note.] It must still be held that here he insults gratuitously the 
most distinguished Greek warriors. 

193. Frowning stern. The Greek is much stronger, picturing 
him as looking out from under frowning brows. 

194. This speech is an unusually tine example of indignant in- 
vective. It is in such passages as this that Pope is at his best. If 
they be conscious or didactic, they are yet well balanced, skilfully 
arranged, and full of spirit. 

208. That is, to avenge the abduction of Helen, wife of Menelaus. 

228. Grecian kings claimed membership in the heroic line, and 
a pedigree back to Zeus. Cf. line •_'."><), below. 

231. Agamemnon, like all angry men. charges his opponent with 
the quarrelsome spirit. 

233. That is, "It's nothing to be proud of, for it's a gift of the 
gods." 

239. Threat. Threaten. 

247. Hence. In this way. In this and the following speech 
Agamemnon appears the more hateful in that his motive seems 
merely to be a show of superior power. 

255-257. That — This. Notice the force of this brief use of the 
demonstrative. It BUg lure. Tope uses the words in this 

way several times. Cf. Book XXII., lines 197-199. 

265. ConfessM. Apparent. Tf. Book XXII.. line 14. 

273. Progeny. Offspring. Soused in Gray: — 

" What idle progeny succeed 
To chase the rolling circle's Bp 
Or urge the flying ball." 

208. The Greeks seem to have used the names of animals in 
" calling names" to an unusual degree. In the dog they seem never 
to have noticed the noble traits (the hound of Ulysses is the only 
exception I can find), and the word conveys the extremest reproach. 
Here Achilles means to call Agamemnon shameless and cowardly. 
(We would say hare rather than deer.) 

The downright Homeric vernacular troubled Pope. Generally 






NOTES — BOOK L 137 

he avoids the too-forcible language of the original, or, if he gives it, 
uses it apologetically. Thus, when Homer calls Ajax an ass, Pope 
writes : — 

" The slow beast with heavy strength endued." 

The line in question is pretty vigorous for him. Chapman quibbles 
it as follows: — 

" Thou ever steeped in wine, 
Dog's face with heart but of a hart." 
AndTickell: — 

" Valiant with wine and furious from the bowl, 
Thou fierce-looked talker, with a coward's soul." 

299. Ambushed fights were the test of the Homeric hero, and 
the customary duty of champions. 

309. This sacred sceptre refers to the wand which each in turn 
received from the heralds. While holding it, one " had the floor." 

317-324. These lines are unusually good. They give all the fire 
of the original, and the few additional touches are of kindred spirit. 

332. This has always been a favorite figure with poets. Milton 
uses it in "Paradise Lost," and cf. Prov. v. 3. 

333. As a generation, by common computation, is thirty years, 
Nestor was nearly ninety. 

345. From this point Nestor's speech smacks of the garrulity of 
age, though some see in it merely an endeavor to weaken the anger 
of the disputants by talk of other events of greater or less interest. 

374. Understand " that " before Achilles. 

377. This speech is a mere repetition of his former, for he has no 
substantial charge to urge against Achilles. 

411. Lustrations. Ceremonial purification. Practised by the 
Greeks chiefly to free its subjects from the pollution of crime, and in 
this case symbolical of the desire to remove all about their persons 
occasioning anger to the god. 

412. Briny wave. Salt water was generally used because sup- 
posed to contain certain fiery particles. 

430. Awful. Pope always uses this word in its proper sense of 
showing or awakening awe, respect, or reverence. 

432. Decent. Proper. 

433. Contrast Achilles' high-toned courtesy here with his pre- 
vious bearing towards Agamemnon. 



138 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

435. The person of a herald was inviolable as being under tin- 
joint protection of Jove and Mercury. 

450-453. Briseis' conduct here is certainly suggestive of some- 
thing in favor of a tender side to the hero's character. And it may 
be observed that, brief as is the mention of Briseis in the poem, and 
small the part she plays, what little is said is pre-eminently calcu- 
lated to enhance her fitness to be the bride of Achilles. Purity and 
retiring delicacy are features well contrasted with the rough but 
true disposition of the hero. 

453. And oft look'd back. A pleasing and poetical sag 
tioii, but not in Homer. Pope borrowed this from an earlier French 
translation. 

457. Thetis is said to have been born of the sea-foam. 

460. Achilles calling to his mother in his Lxriof, shows us how 
childlike all Homer's heroes are, with all their fierce ways. And in 
this they are the more interesting. 

461. This alludes to a story which Achilles tellfl the am 

of Agamemnon (Book IX.). that he had the choice of two fates: one, 

less glorious, at home, hut blessed with a very long life: the other, 

full of glory at Troy, hut then he was never to return. [Tom's 
Note.] 

470. Goddess-mother. She was Thetis, a sea-nymph, w ' 
hand had been sought by Jupiter and Neptune; hut it was fated 
that she should hear a son more powerful than his father. s<> it was 
resolved to marry her to a mortal, and she accordingly became the 
wife of Peleus. [COWFBR'S NOTB.] Landor'fl "Imaginary Conver- 
sations," "Peleus and Thetis," should he read in this connection. 

And cf. Booh XXIV., lines 76-63. 

471. Notice the propriety and beauty of this comparison. 

474. Why grieves my son? A question natural in its tender 
simplicity. 

480. Notice hero the hero's naivete in taking as a matter of 
course the sack and burning of a town, the slaughter or enslavement 
of the townspeople. From these verses it is evident that the fruits 
of these piratical expeditions went to the common support, and not 
to the successful plunderer. See also note on line 158, above. 

508. That is, renders null the votes of the Grecian army, who 
assigned Briseis to me. 












NOTES— BOOK L 139 

515. Jupiter, having acquired supremacy in heaven, made an 
exorbitant use of his power, and treated the other gods with much 
haughtiness. A sedition among them was the consequence, and a 
conspiracy to bind him. But Thetis, apprised of their intentions by 
her father Nereus, hastened to the aid of Jupiter, attended by 
^Egeon, who terrified them from their purpose. Jupiter, learning 
the particulars of this cabal from Thetis, suspended Juno by the 
wrists, commanded Xeptune and Apollo to work for Laomedon, and, 
in recompense of such signal service rendered him by Thetis, con- 
ferred on her son Achilles the honor of complete vengeance for the 
injury done him by Agamemnon. Achilles, in this passage desiring 
the punishment of the Grecians, very artfully reminds his mother 
that those deities who now assist them had formerly been confeder- 
ated against Jupiter. [Cowper's Note.] 

518. Bright partner. Juno. 

519. Minerva and Xeptune are referred to. 
525. That is, Xeptune. 

527. Nowhere else in Homer is there any such monstrous concep- 
tion as this. 

531. Embrace his knees. Lines 55, 56, Book VI., show this to 
be the accepted posture of one in humble supplication. 

543. A gloomy destiny lurks throughout Homer, from which even 
the gods are not exempt. Cf. Book VI., line (327, and Book XXII., 
line 9. 

551. Here is meant the Thessalian Olympus. 

555. The Homeric ocean is a great stream flowing round the 
world. 

557. George Eliot suggests that the ^Ethiopians were " blame- 
less " because they dwelt so far off they had no neighbors to criticise 
them. 

568. Lash'd the mast aside. That is, put it into its " receiver."' 
This shows the size of the Homeric ship ; which, moreover, was 
generally drawn up on the beach. 

569. Anchors. Stones, or crooked pieces of wood weighted. 
The Greeks were the first to use anchors of iron. 

581. Aton'd. Reconciled. 

584. Darting. So called because of the bow and arrows with 
which he is always represented. 



140 THE ILIAD OF II03IER. 

587. Cf. line 600, below. The salted cake, made usually of barley- 
meal, was an ordinary portion of a sacrifice, and each of those partici- 
pating threw some upon the victim's head. The order of sacrifice 
was as follows : the hands were washed, and the barley raised from 
the earth. Then, after prayer, the head of the victim was sprinkled, 
and the forelock cut off and burned. These were preliminary rites ; 
the victim's head was now drawn back, and the chief person p» 
slew and flayed it. Then the thigh-bones were cut out, and co\ 
with two layers of fat. Slices of meat from other parts of the ca 
were laid upon them, and the whole was burned with libations of 
wine as the portion of the gods, who were supposed to be cheered by 
the rising savor. 

G01. Heads to heaven, because ofFered to celestials; such as were 
sacrificed to infernal deities were Blain with heads turned down- 
wards. 

(308. Black. Used constantly in the sense of "dark." 

010. CrownM. Thai is, filled to the brim. A drinking-cup 
held by each one present. At first, a few drops only were poured 
into each cup, which the receive! immediately poured out as a liba- 
tion to the gods. Then the cups were filled for drinking. 

621. With the passage here closing may he compared Dryden's 
"Virgil" (Book I.): — 

'•The Jolly crew, unmindful <>f the past, 

The quarry share, their plenteous dinner h i-te. 
Some strip the skin ; s<>me portion out the spoil ; 
The limbs yet trembling, in the caldrons i".ii ; 
Some on the tire the reeking entrails hroil. 

Stretch'd on the grassy turf, at ease they dine. 

Restore their Btrengtfa with meat, and cheer their souls with wine." 

034. Navy. Fleet. The use is common. 

042. Ascending. Pope evidently gets this idea from Dryden, 
who wrote, — 

11 Jove at their head ascending from the sea." 

Homer has no such idea, merely saying that the gods returned from 
their visit to the remotest of men. 

646. Address'd. Directed. 

665. Dear. Dear, or important, to her. 



NOTES — BOOK L 141 

667. She means, "None is higher than you ; you cannot fear." 
683. This description of the majesty of Jupiter has something 
exceedingly grand and venerable. Macrohius reports, that Phidias, 
having made his Olympian Jupiter, which passed for one of the 
greatest miracles of art, was asked from what pattern he framed so 
divine a figure, and answered, it was from that archetype which he 
found in these lines. [Pope's Note.] Cf . also Milton's " Paradise 
Lost," Book II., line 351 : — 

" So was his will 
Pronounced among the gods, and by an oath, 
That shook heaven's whole circumference, confirmed." 

694. As Homer makes the first council of his men to he one con- 
tinued scene of anger, whereby the Grecian chiefs became divided, 
so ne makes the first meeting of the gods to be spent in the same 
passion, whereby Jupiter is more fixed to assist the Trojans, and 
Juno more incensed against them. Thus the design of the poem 
goes on. [Pope's Note.] 

698. Here Pope grows grandiloquent. Lord Derby is calm and 
dignified. Many critics think Homer intended to make this scene 
more or less humorous — sarcastic by contrast. See note on lines 
640-780, page 142. 

713. Homer generally uses the eye of the ox or heifer for compari- 
son, as suggestive of majesty and calm. 

719. Consult. Consultation. 

739. His mother. Juno. Jupiter was his father. 

741. The architect divine. Vulcan "built the golden palaces of 
the gods. Cf. line 779, below. 

753. The double bowl. A vessel formed like two bells united 
at the apices, so that it would serve as a goblet whichever way 
turned. 

765. With the preceding lines compare the following from " Para- 
dise Lost," Book I. : — 

" Nor was his name unheard or unadored 
In ancient Greece ; and in Ausonian land 
Men call'd him Mulciber ; and how he fell 
From heaven, they fabled, thrown by angry Jove 
Sheer o'er the crystal battlements ; from morn 
To noon he fell, from noon to dewy eve, 



142 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

A summer's day ; and with the setting sun 
Dropp'd from the zenith like a falling star 
On Lemnos, th' ^Egean isle ; thus they relate." 

771. Vulcan designed to move laughter, says Pope, but it was by 
his awkward performance of the part of Ganymede, for the gods were 
not so unfeeling as to laugh at his lameness. 

775. Voice alternate. That is, singing responsively. 

640-780. The gods formed a sort of political community of their 
own, which had its hierarchy, its distribution of ranks and duties, 
its contentions for power and occasional revolutions, its public meet- 
ings in the agora of Olympus, and its multitudinous banquets 01 
festivals. [Grotk.] Heir we see the gods simply as stronger men. 
Zeus is the angry husband, vexed at his wife's iiKpiisitiven. ss. and 
provoked thereby to arbitrariness. The BOene surely is not reverent, 
and, indeed, would seem to show that what humor Homer may have 
he confines to Olympian scenes, where passions are displayed beneath 
the dignity of hero.-, in morality the terrestrial tone is distinctly 
superior. 

Walter Loaf has the following paragraph in his valuable and en- 
tertaining " Companion to the Iliad * (page 64): " It Is impossible to 
Leave this splendid book without noticing the supreme art with which 
all the leading characters on both the stages of the coming story 
have been introduced to us: drawn in Btrong strokes where not a 

touch is lost, and standing before US at once as finished types for all 
time. On earth wo already know the contrast between the surly 
resentment of Agamemnon and the flaming but placable passion of 
Achilles, and we have had a glimpse <^ the mild wisdom of Nestor 
and the devoted friendship of Patroclus. In heaven the three chief 
actors, Zeus, Hera, and Athene, already present themselves as the 

strong but overweighted husband, the jealous and domineering wife, 
and the ideal of self-restraint and wise reflection.* 1 



BOOK VI. 

Line 1. Th' immortals. Mars, Apollo, Aphrodite, Juno, and 
Minerva. 

5. Troy's famed streams. Scamander and Simo'is. 
Deathful. Pope always uses this suffix very exactly. So " dire- 






NOTES — BOOK VI. 143 

ful " in line 199, below, and " awful " as constantly. (And see espe- 
cially line 371, below.) 

6. Main. Literally, a broad expanse of space or light, but not 
infrequently in the older poets in this sense of the open sea. 

9. What is the grammatical construction of "The Thracian 
Acamas"? Falchion. A short, broad sword, with a slightly 
curved point. 

12. Horse-hair. This primitive crest seems to have been the 
earliest form of cognizance, though Jupiter bore a ram, and Mars a 
lion. See Flaxman's plates to the poem. 

14. A very good line. Notice the force of " endless," the sugges- 
tiveness of " swimming," also the alliteration. 

15. Distain'd. Stained. Cf. line 335, below. 

19. Fast. Close, near by. 

" Fast by the throne obsequious Fame resides." 

Pope's The Temple of Fame. 

20. The terseness, balance, and " point " in this line are very char- 
acteristic of Pope. Cf. also lines 184, 281, and 513, below. " There is 
a pathos in the thought of how little he received, in his hour of need, 
for all his kindness to others." [Keep's Note.] 

27. Two twins. Tautological. 

28. Naiad. In the extended mythology of the ancient Greeks, 
the Naiads were the goddesses presiding over the fresh-water lakes, 
rivers, and fountains. 

29. So Paris, also a prince, tended his father's flocks on Mount 
Ida. 

34. "To the victor belong the spoils," was a fundamental idea. 
See the speech of Adrastus, below, and line 330, Book XXII. 

50. The horses were attached by the yoke only. Flaxman's illus- 
trations will give the best idea of the war-chariot used by the Greeks. 
It went out of use about 700 B.C. 

54. Atrides. Menelaus. 

Vengeful steel. Transferred epithet. Cf. — 

" The maid, alarm'd, with hasty oar, 
Push'd her light shallop from the shore." 

Scott, Lady of the Lake, i. 

57. Quarter was seldom given save with a view to ransom. Pope 



144 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

has the following note: "This passage, where Agamemnon takes 
away that Trojan's life whom Menelaus had pardoned, and is not 
blamed by Homer for so doing, must be ascribed to the uncivilized 
manners of those times. The historical books of the Old Testament 
abound in instances of the like cruelty to conquered enemi 

59. Fame. Report- (Lat.,/ama.) 

Gl. Rich heaps of brass. Grote says: "The halls of Alcinous 
and Menelaus glitter with gold, copper, and electmm; while large 
stocks of yet unemployed metal — gold, copper, and iron — are stored 
up in the treasure-chamber of Odyssena and other chiefs. Coined 
money is unknown in the Homeric age — the trade carried on being 
one of barter. In reference also to the metals, it deserves to be re- 
marked, that the Homeric descriptions universally suppose copper. 
and not iron, to be employed for arms, both offensive and defensive. 
By what process the copper was tempered and hardened, BO as to 

Serve the purpose of the warrior, we do not know; but the 
iron for these objects belongs to a later age." And of. lin 
below. 

G2. Persuasive. A very BUggestive word in this connection. 

65. Suggestive of the same pitying, pliant nature that at the fall 
of Troy pardoned Helen. See in this connection Landor's " Imagi- 
nary Conversations,' 1 " Menelaus and Helen." 

7<>. Of course ironical. A reminder of the WTOngS Menelaus had 
Buffered at the hands of Paris, and BO Of all Troy. 

75. Exam pled fate. Is this tautological? 

91. What is the antecedent to '* her " ? 

92. Helenus, though a priest, fights. In Homer the priests do 

not form a caste apart. 

101. Implying the habitual effeminacy of the Trojan soldier. 

104. Ourselves. That is, all except Hector and JSneas. Not 
the use referred to in the note on line l h'>. Book I. 

110. Fane. Poetical. Any place consecrated to religion. (Lat., 
fanum.) 

115. That is, before her image. A similar ceremony is immor- 
talized in the frieze of the Parthenon where a peplos is offered to 
Athene. 

121. "Even Achilles was not SO feared." 

125. Hector obedient heard. Again Pope's terseness is marked. 






NOTES— BOOK VI. 145 

Homer is, "So spake he, and Hector disregarded not his brother's 
word." 

135-138. Hear— war. Pope's rhymes are not often imperfect. 
(But cf. lines 153, 154, below.) The rhyme in lines 137, 138, follows 
too closely after line 136 not to be displeasing. This latter failing is 
not uncommon to Pope. 

145. The Homeric shield, according to Jebb, is usually round ; 
but some hints occur of oblong ones, as this present line, or the 
likening of that of Ajax to a tower. 

146. Brazen buckler. Homer only speaks of " the black hide — 
of his bossed shield." That is, layers of ox-hide covered with metal. 
The words here used are Pope's own. 

147. The manner in which this episode is introduced is well illus- 
trated by the following remarks of Mure: "The poet's method of 
introducing his episode, also illustrates, in a curious manner, his tact 
in the dramatic department of his art. Where, for example, one or 
more heroes are despatched on some commission, to be executed at a 
certain distance of time or place, the fulfilment of this task is not, as 
a general rule, immediately described. A certain interval is allowed 
them for reaching the appointed scene of action, which interval is 
dramatized, as it were, either by a temporary continuation of the 
previous narrative, or by fixing attention for a while on some new 
transaction, at the close of which the further account of the mission 
is resumed." (Line 296.) 

165. Consecrated spears. The " Thyrsi " were staffs fashioned 
at the end in the form of a pine cone. 

177. Too prodigal of breath. There is nothing in the original 
suggestive of this fine phrase. 

180. That Glaucus (in the tenth year of the war) is unknown to 
Dioined , though knowing him, may seem odd ; but Glaucus is not a 
prominent chief. Priam does not know Agamemnon and the other 
Grecian leaders. (Book III.) 

181. In this line is the oldest extant quotation from Homer. It 
is given by Simonides, who lived in the eighth century before Christ. 
The figure is a favorite one with poets. 

189. Many famous descriptive passages commence with a similar 
line. See Yirgil's "^Enead," Book I., line 5, and Dante's " Inferno," 
Book V., line 97. The incident may be introduced to properly with- 



146 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

draw Diomed from the field, after the prodigies of valor he has 
performed (Book V.) ; but quite as probably it is used to illus 
the power of the bond of guest-friendship, a bond which Paris lias 
violated. 

200. Such inversion as this, placing the verb last, is very com- 
mon in Pope. 

201. Lawless. Formerly no distinction was made between this 
word and "unlawful," which would now be used in this place. 
With this incident compare (Jen. xxxix. 

210. Tablets. It is uncertain whether or not writing was known 
in Homeric times. (See G-rote, Vol. II.. page 1 ( .»'_'.) Here, perhaps, 

signs or hieroglyphic characters were used. 

214. Nine (lays. Nine is a lav. >rite round number with Homer. 
Cf. line 293, below: ami Hook XXIV., line ill 

215. It was customary to entertain a guest before asking as to his 
home and errand. So Alcinous entertains Odysseus. 

223. Expire. Breathe out. a use <»i the word now nearly obsolete. 

235,236. That Is, was hnt gradually convinced bythesucoec 
exploits which spoke of divine help. 

Confess'd. Declared his belief in. Cf. Matt. \.. 

264. Hereditary. A> though the guestship passed from father 
to son. This whole passage is interesting ns descriptive <>f guest- 
friendship in Homeric times. 

274. The art of dyeing was practised in the East from the earliest 
times. The Tyriaxi purple was famous. 

280. Incline. In the derivative sense I Lat.) ^i " to turn." 

295. Of this proverbially bad bargain Cowpersays : "Glaucus,it 
is observed, hearing Diomed speak of the liberality shown by Belle- 
roplion to CEneus, determined not to fall below the example of bis 
ancestor, and therefore consented to an exchange so very unequal/ 1 
The entire episode forms an admirable transition from the battle- 
field to the I lian homes. 

298-301. This pretty picture gives ns the "one touch of nature." 
and, like the equally natural and simple one in lines 595-599, below, 
brings out in stronger contrast the Burrounding scene of war. 

310. Strict. Close. 

332. Spare. "Be frugal of," — the first meaning. 

362. Soft Sidon. So called because of the widely known effemi- 
nacy and profligacy of the inhabitants. 



NOTES— BOOK VL 147 

363. According to Herodotus, Paris was driven by storms first to 
Egypt, and then to Phoenicia. 

3G0-3G8. A very similar account occurs in Dryden's "^Eneid," 
Book I., line 670 ff. 

369. A very good line. Cf. also Book XXIV., line 124. 

389. Dome. Syncope. From Homer we can gather but little of 
the style of the Homeric house, or its effect on the eye. Probably 
more attention was paid to ornamental detail than to beauty of pro- 
portion, to strength and convenience than to elegance. 

395. A cubit is between 20 and 21 inches, making the spear some 
16 feet long. This may seem exaggerated, but Ajax (Book XV.) 
wields one twice as long. And Xenophon mentions a tribe using 
spears of 15 cubits, or 22 feet. 

396. Steely. This suffix is very common in Pope in the sense of 
"like " or "resembling." Towery, steepy, gleamy, and other words 
follow (lines 468, 480, 650). 

Golden ringlets. A ferule to prevent the shaft's splintering. 

400. But one of many lines showing his vanity. 

404. Ardent. Burning, angry. 

409. Thy close (i.e. secret) resentment. By the compact in 
Book V., the Trojans had agreed to surrender Paris ; for, as the cause 
of the long war, he is hated by the people.* He not unnaturally has 
refused them his help. The general situation is sufficient to explain 
the scene. 

422-425. The lines show his feeble and vacillating character. 

425. Helen's beauty is ever assumed, rather than described. The 
nearest approach to description occurs in Book III. : — 

" No wonder such celestial charms 
For nine long years have set the world in arms ; 
What winning graces ! what majestic mien ! 
She moves a goddess, and she looks a queen ! " 

427. " 'Tis not in mortals to command success." 

Addison's Cato. 

428. Contain. Restrain; here used in derivative sense (Lat.). 
431. Notice Helen's tone of self-abasement, both here and in 

Book XXIV., lines 962-980. 

441. This complaint of Paris is, perhaps, natural, but certainly 
unpleasing. 



148 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

449. And theme of future song and Perhaps the last that 

me here (line 458) seem to imply a prophetic half-knowledge of 
the future. 

470. Explore. A very Latinized sense, "look for." Cf. Book 
XXII., line 63. 

484. The Greek is " like a mad woman." 

491. The following picture, and those similar scenes between 
Helen and Menelaus, or Odysseus and Penelope, attest a pure and 
tender conception of conjugal affection. In every connection the 
marriage tie is sacredly strong — and this tie Paris lias violated. 

543. Sudden deaths of women were often imputed to Diana. 

544, 545. A touching confession often quoted. 

551. These trees are mentioned as landmarks in Bookfl XI. and 
XXII. 

580. Weaving ifi the most ancient of the manufacturing arts. 

581. Was. What is the subject ? 

582. 683. Peaiing water was a chief duty of the ancient slave. 
591. Monumental. Serving as a monument or memorial. So in 

"TheDunciad " (Book IP. line 313) : 

"Tin- monumental brass tin- record bean, 

1 These are — ah, n<> ! these were the gazetteers.' " 

603. l'referr'd. Another use in the original (I, at.) sense, "offer 
up." 

591-623. This passage has never heel) more beautifully translated 
than here. 

626-631. Strongly marked with the Homeric belief in a predeter- 
mined fate. See note to line 643, Book I. 
636. War. Here a verb. 
638. Resumes and Reverts dine 041) are again examples of 

words used in the original Latin sense. 

643. As Helen's beauty, so Andromache's grace and COmeli 

are largely assumed. It is as wife and mother that she charms. 
Brutus' Portia is said to have wept over a picture of this scene. 
G52. Wanton. Unrestrained, unruly. 

" How does your tongue grow wanton in her praise." 

Addison's Cato. 

The points of similarity here implied are beauty, youth, an exuber- 



NOTES — BOOK VI 149 

ance of spirits, and a lack of common-sense. Homer's similes are 
world-famous. Book XXII. abounds in them. The following ex- 
tracts are from Jebb's "Introduction to Homer," the best book on 
the subject yet published. Having spoken of the vividness, variety, 
and beauty of the similes in Homer, of their characteristic value and 
importance, he writes ; "The first point to observe is that Homeric 
simile is not a mere ornament. It serves to introduce something 
which Homer desires to render exceptionally impressive. . . . He 
wishes to prepare us for it by first describing something similar, only 
more familiar, which he feels sure of being able to make us see 
clearly. . . . When Homer compares A to B, he will often add de- 
tails concerning B which have no bearing on the comparison. For 
instance, when the sea-god Poseidon soars into the air from the Tro- 
jan plain, he is compared to a hawk : — 

1 That from a beetling brow of rock 
Launched in mid-air forth dashes to pursue 
Some lesser bird along the plain below ; ' 

but Poseidon is not pursuing any one; the point of similitude is 
solely the speed through the air. Such admission of irrelevant de- 
tail might seem foreign to that direct aim at vividness which is the 
ruling motive of Homeric simile; but it is, in fact, only another 
expression of it. If A is to be made clearer by means of B, then B 
itself must be clearly seen ; and therefore Homer takes care that B 
shall never remain abstract or shadowy; he invests it with enough 
of detail to place a concrete image before the mind. . . . The poet's 
delight in a picture, and the Hellenic love of clear-cut form, are cer- 
tainly present; but both are subordinate to a sense that the object 
which furnishes a simile must be made distinct before the simile 
itself can be effective. . . . The ' Iliad ' contains about 180 de- 
tailed similes." (Pages 26-28.) 

Mr. Leaf, in his " Companion to the Iliad/' already quoted, writes 
of Book VI. as follows: " Of all the 'Iliad' this incomparable book 
attains the grandest heights of narrative and composition, of action 
and pathos. Nowhere else have we so perfect a gallery of types 
of human character; the two pairs, Hector and Paris, Helen and 
Andromache, in their truthfulness and contrast, form a group as 
subtly as they are broadly drawn; while, on the other hand, the 



150 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

'battle vignettes' with which the hook opens, and the culmination 
of the scenes of war in the meeting of Glaucus and Diomed, set 
before us with unequalled vivacity the pride of life of an heroic 
the refinement of feeling which no fierceness of fight can barbarize, 
in the most consummate manner of the 'great style.' " (Page 133.) 



In these intervening books several passages should he read in 
some good translation: the night adventure of Ulysses and Diomed 
(X.); the bravery <>f Tdomeneus (XIII.); the workshop of Vulcan 
(XVIII.); and especially the grand description of Achillea' shield 
(XVIII.). 

BOOK XXII. 

The supreme Interest in this boos: is due to the double aspect, the 
human and divine : on the one band, the personal contrast between 
the two heroes ; on the other, the will of Zeus behind and directing 
all. Here too, in the slaving of Sector, the story may be said to 
culminate. 

Link 1. Smit. The old form of the p. part. 
(;. The same formation as ( SsBsar's U studo. 

<). Kate. That IS, not by his own fault or imprudence. 

14. Confess'cL Evident. 

18. Latent. Lying bid or secret (Lat.). 

;') ( .). Orion's dog. The dog-star, which, of evil influence during 

the summer days, is BUppOSed to gTOW even more malevolent as 
autumn comes on, at which season it shines at night. 

The year when autumn weighs (it down). Autumn is suh- 

ject, year ohject. 

Lord Derby renders this passage, — 

11 Like to th' autumnal star, whose brilliant ray 
Shines eminent amid the depth of ni.u r ht. 
"Whom men the dog-star of Orion call." 

And compare Milton : — 

" < >n the other side. 
Incensed with indignation, Satan stood 
Unterritied, and like a comet burn'd, 



NOTES — BOOK XXII. 151 

That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge 
In the arctic sky, and from his horrid hair 
Shakes pestilence and war." 

Paradise Lost, Book XI., line 708. 

45. Obtests. To call upon earnestly, to entreat. 

48. War. Combat. 

55, 56. Notice the irony. 

61, 62. Cf. Book XXIV., line 924. Slavery was the lot of all 
prisoners of war. Among the Greeks it was less repulsive than 
among the Orientals. 

64. Laothoe is referred to. Among the Greeks polygamy was un- 
known. This case (and the dowery — line 69 — proves it a recognized 
marriage) is one of the few hints of conscious difference of custom 
dividing the two nations. 

74-107. A remarkably fine passage, and among the best of Pope's 
work. Both beauty and pathos are noticeable. 

76. Yet. Still. 

96, 97. The idea of the house-dog thus turning on his master of 
course increases the horror of the suggestion. 

108. Acting what no words could say. A very suggestive 
phrase, wholly Pope's own. 

112. Zone. A girdle or belt. (See JHaxman's plates.) 

" With a side 
White as Hebe's, when her zone 
Slipt its golden clasp, and down 
Fell her kirtle to her feet." 

Keats. 

126. Torrents. In keeping with the many other poetical exag- 
gerations of the age. See note on line 32, Book I. 

130-135. " As a serpent of the mountains upon his den awaiteth 
a man, having fed on evil poisons, and fell wrath hath entered into 
him." — Jebb. 

136. Reclin'd. Resting. 

137. " And thus his own undaunted mind explores." 

Paradise Lost, Book VI., line 113. 
139. " Honor and shame from no condition rise, 

Act well your part, there all the honor lies." 

Pope, Essay on Man. 



152 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

141. He had advised Hector to lead back the Trojan forces before 
Achilles should again join the conflict. 

147. Worthless because effeminate. See Helenus' speech, Book 
VI., line 101. 

158. The wife (of Menelaus). That is, Helen. 

161. Store. Wealth. 

180. Compare the famous climax of Cicero in the "First Cati- 
line: " " abiit, excedit, evasit, erumpit." 

189. Fore-right. Right-forward. 

104. Smoke. One of the very few words in Tope of ambiguous 
meaning. It is held that here he implied such speed as to sn 
the dust rising behind them Like smoke. I >erby gives " rac'd amain.'' 

203, 204. The example of Nausica, in the "Odyssey," Bhows thai 
in Homeric times such duties were not held derogatory even to ■ 
princess. 

206. A very strong line. No Other translator lias done as well. 
Chapman wrote : — 

•• a Btrong man fled before, 
A stronger followed him." 
And Lord Derby : — 

•• Good he wl><> fled, bat better who pursued." 
And Myers : — 

" Valiant was the flier, but far mightier Ik- who fleetly pursued him." 

221. Unworthy sight. Speaking <>f this incident ("Homer and 

the Epic," p. 210), Mr. Lang says, " Had Eomer been read in the 
Middle Ages, there is little doubt that most of Book XXII. would 
have been 'excised' by critical knights and minstrels. Nor can 
most men of Northern blood, and with the traditions of knightly 
honour in their minds, of knightly honour and of Northern courage, 
read it without shame as well as sorrow. But we do not reject it for 
Homeric merely because the evidence of all the Muses singing out of 
heaven could never convince us that Hector fled from Achilles. In 
a saga or a chanson de fjeste, in an Arthurian romance, in a Border 
ballad, in whatever poem or tale answers in our Northern literature, 
however feebly, to Homer, this flight round the walls of Troy would 
be an absolute impossibility. Under the eyes of his father, his 
mother, his countrymen, Hector flies — the gallant Hector, 'a very 






NOTES — BOOK XXII. 153 

perfect, gentle knight' — from the onset of a single foe. Can we 
fancy Skarphedin, or Gunnar, or Grettir, or Olaf Howard's son fly- 
ing from one enemy ? Can we imagine Lancelot of the Lake, who 
naked held Guinevere's bower against an armed multitude, retreat- 
ing from before a single knight ? No ballad-monger would have 
been believed who said that the Douglas or the Percy turned his 
back on a foe. Assuredly the hearers of the sagas, the audience of 
the trouvere who chanted that lost fight in Roncesvaux, or the 
readers of Mallory, or Sidney, who loved to listen to ' Chevy Chase ' 
from the lips of a blind crowder, would all have rejected the twenty- 
second book and the story of Hector's flight. We do not, of course, 
reject it. Homer's world, Homer's chivalry, Homer's ideas of 
knightly honour, were all unlike those of the Christian and the North- 
ern world. Roland will not even blow a blast on that dread horn for 
all the multitude of the paynims. But Hector, the hope of Troy, 
fled thrice round the walls from a single spear." 

240. Coleridge notices that Zeus is regarded as omnipotent, and 
could, if need be, withhold or subvert fate. 

243-248. The chase opens with a simile suggestive of speed, and 
closes (line 257) with one suggestive of fatigue. 

250. Compass. What is the number and person of this verb, 
and why ? 

254. Pope constantly speaks of lofty turrets, et csetera. Coleridge 
writes: "The siege of Troy was as little like a modern siege as a 
captain in the guards is like Achilles. There is no mention of a ditch 
or any other line or work round the town, and the wall itself was 
accessible without a ladder. It was probably a vast mound of earth 
with a declivity outwards. Patroclus thrice mounts it in armor. 
The Trojans are in no respects blockaded, and receive assistance 
from their allies to the very end." 

257-260. Well illustrative of the futility of the efforts of each 
warrior. Such imagery, drawn from sensation or thought, is ex- 
tremely rare in Homer. 

263. O Muse! See note on Book I., line 11. 

276. Hell. The Greek word means literally "unseen," and 
stands for the elysian abode of the blessed as well as for the wretched 
home of the wicked. 

291-294. Even the highest ideal of the deity admitted of fraud 



154 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

and deceit. De'iphobiis was especially loved and trusted by Hector. 
See line 302. 

Show (line 293). Appearance. 

Belied (line 294). Feigned. 

To again quote from Mr. Lang : " It is remarkable that when the 
true poet had to pit against each other a courteous and patriotic war- 
rior like Hector and a young hero who. like Achilles, is really fighting 
only for his own hand and his own private passion, he should have 
made Hector check our sympathy by his flight, and Achilles even 
more unsympathetic by the treacherous aid of Athene than by his 
own relentless and Bavage revenge, All this should warn us not to 
judge of Homer's taste and his conduct of the tale by our standard M 
(p. 212). 

As to the divine intervention, Mr. Leal says: "The pi 
the gods on Achilles' shle was not so much a mere extraneous aid as 
a tangible sign that Achilles was, after all, fighting the great fight of 
Hellenism against barbarism; it i^ a. reminder that the action on 
earth is hut a reflexion of the will of heaven, and exalts rather than 
belittles those to whom the help is gi veil "' (p, 36 

329. 1 am frank to say that Hector's words here smack to me of 
hesitation and an attempt to bargain. Nothing could be in stronger 
contrast to the (dear confidence of Achilles, his certainty of \ ictory 
and revenge. Leaf finds the scene one to enlist our sympathy and 
admiration for Hector's hopeless condition. 

.'»:')7. Pacts. Compacts. 

"As between men and lions there is no pledge of faith.— as 
wolves and sheep cannot be of one mind." - - J EBB. 

367. Boasting is one of the prominent characteristics of the 
Homeric hero. 

378. And my hour is nigh 1 It was held to be dangerous, if not 
fatal, to behold the deity. 

384. Son of Jove. Phoebus. 

390, All collected. " And gathered himself." — Myers. 

392. Truss. To sieze and carry off. 

11 Brave falcons that dare truss a fowl 
Much greater than themselves. M 

Chapman. 
395. Fourfold cone. " Four-plated helm." —Myers. 



NOTES — BOOK XXII. 155 

426, 427. Fine lines, and of distinct melody. 

437. Cowper renders this more forcibly and literally : — 

" I would my fierceness of revenge were such 
That I could carve and eat thee, to whose arms 
Such griefs I owe ! " 

452. Snch was his fate. After chasing the Trojans into the 
town, he was slain by an arrow from the quiver of Paris, directed 
under the unerring auspices of Apollo. The greatest efforts were 
made by the Trojans to possess themselves of the body, which was, 
however, rescued and borne off to the Grecian camp by the valor of 
Ajax and Ulysses. Thetis stole away the body, just as the Greeks 
were about to burn it with funeral honors, and conveyed it away to a 
renewed life of immortality in the isle of Leuke in the Euxine. 
[Watson's Note.] 

461, 462. Here Achilles' fatalism again appears. According to 
our standard, the speech shows the only touch of nobility in Achilles' 
entire action. 

466. His. That is, Hector's. 

467. Perhaps this brutality sprung from a desire in certain ones 
to share in the revenge. Cf. Book XXIV., line 513. 

468. Disgrace. See note on line 200, Book VI. 

483-490. "The heroic companions whom we find celebrated, 
partly by Homer and partly in traditions, which, if not of equal an- 
tiquity, were grounded on the same feeling, seem to have but one 
heart and soul, with scarcely a wish or object apart, and only to live, 
as they are always ready to die, for one another. It is true that the 
relation between them is not always one of perfect equality : but this 
is a circumstance which, while it often adds a peculiar charm to the 
poetical description, detracts little from the dignity of the idea which 
it presents. Such were the friendships of Hercules and Iolaus, of 
Theseus and Pirithous, of Orestes and Pylades; and though these 
may owe the greater part of their fame to the later epic, or even dra- 
matic poetry, the moral groundwork undoubtedly subsisted in the 
period to which the traditions are referred. The argument of the 
' Iliad ' mainly turns on the affection of Achilles for Patroclus, whose 
love for the greater hero is only tempered by reverence for his higher 
birth and his unequalled powers." — Thirlwall. 



156 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

496. Yet less unworthy than the older legend which shows 
Hector dragged alive about the walls. 

499. Wain. Usually used of a four-wheeled vehicle, as a cart or 
wagon. So in Book XXIV., line 342. 

500. His graceful head. Graceful is usually used of beauty of 
action, but occasionally of form. 

502. Distilling. Dropping. 

508-510. In his native land — In his parent's sight. Details 
which increase the horror of the situation. 

521. The capture and burning of a city gave the Greek t lie 
strongest picture of urgent distress. 

527. A fine line. "Raging" and " impotence M include in them- 
selves two whole sentences. 

537. Would it have been more forcible had he written, — 

11 ( >M and miserable m i am " ? 

r)4.' > >. Cf. Jacob's "will bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to 
to the grave.'" 

52Q-549. A passage of much pathetic beauty. 

667. Melancholy loom. See note on Book VI., line 54. 

.")()!». The subject upon which she is working forms a contrast 

with the events transpiring without. 

r>i>s. "And night came on her eyes, and shrouded her." — J] I 
600-002. These were the Bymbols of her married state. 
620-653. Pope thought this passage exquisite. While it is natu- 
ral that Andromache should think of her son at such a tine 
what she here says is merely a commonplace on orphanage, and not 

applicable to Astyanax while Priam and Hector's brothers are >till 

ali\ e. 

641. Wretch. Used in the sense of one miserable or unhappy. 
No other book of the poem is more comprehensively typical of 

Homer's style than this. Jebb points out the following traits 
"as pre-eminently Homeric:" (1) "The outlines of character are 
made distinct in deed, in dialogue, and in audible thought. (2) The 
divine and human agencies are interfused; the scene passes rapidly 
from earth to Olympus, and again to earth ; the gods speak the same 
Language as men, — noble, yet simple and direct : the gods are super- 
human, in might, — human in love, in hate, and in guile. (3) Each 






NOTES — BOOK XXIV. 157 



crisis of the narrative is marked by a powerful simile from nature. 
(4) The fiercest scenes of war are brought into relief against pro- 
foundly touching pictures of domestic love and sorrow." ("'Intro- 
duction to Homer," p. 37.) 



BOOK XXIV. 

This book is more modern in spirit than any of its predecessors ; 
here the wrong is righted. The straightforward simplicity of the 
plan, however, is distinctly Homeric. As in Book I., we here find 
the dramatic element more prominent than the epic ; the speeches 
are stronger than the narrative. Lang holds this, indeed, the most 
dramatic (and pathetic) book of all. Leaf says of it: "The supreme 
beauty of the last book of the 'Iliad,' and the divine pathos of the 
dying fall in which the tale of strife and blood passes away, are 
above all words of praise. The meeting of Priam and Achilles, 
the kissing of the deadly hands, and the simplicity of infinite sad- 
ness over man's fate in Achilles' reply, mark the high tide of a great 
epoch of poetry. In them we feel that the whole range of suffering 
has been added to the unsurpassed presentment of action, which, 
without this book, might seem to be the crowning glory of the 
'Iliad.'" ("Companion to the Iliad," p. 388.) 

Line 7. "Betakes himself to his sad couch (see note on Book 
VI., line 54) in order to weep there the more unobserved." 
8. All composing. Quieting. 

18. Now shifts his side. Turns from side to side. 

20. Wide. Afar. 

24-26. This seems to have been a custom in Thessaly. 

30. Superior. As emanating from above. 

34. Will'd. That is, was will'd by the other gods; see line 143, 
below. 

37. Juno is referred to. 

38-41. The judgment of Paris ; see any classical dictionary. 

40. His reward was not lustfulness, but the fairest of women. 

57. Shame, as Cowper gives it, is " man's blessing or his curse ; " 
"his blessing," says his note on the passage, "if he is properly in- 
fluenced by it; his curse in its consequence, if he is deaf to its die- 



158 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

tates." Hesiod borrows Homer's words in his ''Works and I» 
(Book I., line 310). [Watson's Note.] 

63. Born to bear wounds. 

64. Insatiate man. 

67. Earth. We use "clay" in a like sense. 

70-74. Owing to the inversion both of words and clauses, and to 
the unusual meaning of " decreed M for doomed (line 71), these lines 
are not clear. Lord Derby is better : — 

" Some show of reason were there In thy Bpeeeh, ' 
God of the silver bow, could Sector boast 
Of equal dignity with Peleus' son." 

78,79. Sec note mi Book L, line 470. 

80. The marriage is described in Book XVIII. 

81. Mlnstrel-god. Apollo. 

87. Grace. Care. 

99. He added not. To thus vary the eustoniary " he Bpoke," is 
both pleasing and more emphatic. 

101. Meteorous. With the idea both of lighl and speed. So in 
Milton's " Paradise Losl : " — 

" The Chernbim descended, on the ground 
Gliding meteorons." 

K>u. Shot. Pishing lines are said to be .shot across the tide: 
paid out. 

Profound. Depth. 

112. The Nereides, water nymphs. 

115. Painted bow. The rainbow. And here the classic my- 
thology seems to toueh our own Old Testament beliefs, for the how- 
set up in the heavens as a sign of hope we find used as the symbol of 

the goddess of hope (Iris). • 

128. Momentary. Lasting bnt a moment. 

139. Suffice it. Zens seems to have held a particular regard for 

Thetis, who therefore exercised over him a singular Influence. This 
may well have been due to her aid referred to in line 515, following. 
(Book I.) 

155. Attends. Pays heed to. 

159. Dispose. Spread forth. So in line 793, below. 

161. Pensive. In Pope's time the word meant much more than 






NOTES — BOOK XXIV. 159 

the present "thoughtful." It implies grief or gloom. See also in 
line 203, below. 

172. Relics. Compare our use of "remains." 

199. Amidst them. In their midst. 

245. " And was known in foreign regions." 

249. Deathful. See note on Book VI. line 5. 

260. Classing Achilles with dogs and vultures is very expressive. 

261,262. Figurative only. As Beatrice, in "Much Ado About 
Nothing," " I could eat his heart in the market place." 

265. Latest blood. As we would say, " last drop." 

273. A present goddess. A goddess in person. 

283. Vests. Vestments. 

285. Chargers. Platters, dishes. 

290. A strongly suggestive contrast between the ideas of a great 
ransom and a single look at the corpse. 

291. The lines immediately following are very natural. Undig- 
nified, peevish, irritated, — it is an attempt to hide the heart -deep 
despair of an old man. 

337. See note to Book VI. line 395. 

346. It is necessary to observe that two cars are here prepared, — 
the one drawn by mules, to carry the presents, and to bring back the 
body of Hector: the other drawn by horses, in which the herald and 
Priam rode. [Watson's Note.] 

372. Living. Having present life, revivifying. A common 
biblical meaning. 

391. Display'd. Open. 

393. Dexter. The word is generally confined to heraldry, and 
seems here rather out of place. Pope also has, — 

" On sounding wings a dexter eagle flew." 

406. " As if they were gazing for a last time." 

417. Golden pinions. Hermes, the messenger of the gods, is 
always represented as wearing winged sandals. 

417^26. Milton has rivalled these lines when, in "Paradise 
Lost," Book V., line 266, seq., he describes the descent of Gabriel: — 

" Down thither prone in flight 
He speeds, and through the vast ethereal sky 
Sails between worlds and worlds, with steady wing, 



160 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 



Now on the polar winds, then with quick fan 
Winnows the buxom air. 

At once on th' eastern cliff of Paradise 
He lights, and to his proper shape returns 
A seraph wing'd. 

Like Maia's son he Btood, 
And shook his plumes, that heavenly fragrance fill'd 
The circuit wide." 

And Dryden writes (" JEneid," Book IV., line 350, seq.) 

11 Hermes obeys ; with golden pinions binds 
His flying feet and mounts the western winds. 
And whether o'er the Beas or earth he flies, 

With rapid force they bear him down the skies. 

But first lie grasps within his awful hand 

The mark of sovereign power, his magic wand : 

With this lie draws the .u r ho>t from hollow grai 

With this he drives them from the Stygian w;r 

Thus aim'd, the god begins bis airy race. 

And drives the racking clonds along the liquid spaa 

427,428. Pope seldom ^<n^ well in the description of natural 
beauty, but here the Lines are very good ; better than either Derby 
or Chapman, who write : " For darkness now was creeping o'er the 

earth " (Derby), and " The dark even fell on the earth " (Chapman). 

The best lines, dealing with nature, that I have found in Pope, are 
the following: — 

"Loud as the wolves on Orca's stormy steep, 

Howl tO the roarings Of the Northern deep." 

43G. Adventure. Peril. 

457, 458. " For like my father's is, methinks, thy face." 

Lord Dbbbt. 

473-475. It does not seem to me that Hermes lias shown any such 
wonderful knowledge, Boeing that what must have been the event 
of the siege, the killing of the Trojan leader by the Grecian leader. 
is already a week old. 

480. Imbrued. Stained. 

484. TCnjoy'd. What is the subjeet ? 

491. Adventure. Here, in our sense of a hazardous undertaking. 









NOTES — BOOK XXIV. 161 

549. Massy. Massive. See note on Book VI. line 396. 

552. Lofty tent. A dwelling on this scale seems scarcely con- 
sistent with the camp of a besieging force. 

560. A feat paralleling the wielding of his spear, — a thing that 
he only could do. 

584. In the following passage two points are to be noted espe- 
cially, — the vividness with which the sudden apparition of the old 
king appears, alone and at night ; and the easy address and simple 
manner of the great hero. In reference to the scene Coleridge 
remarks : — 

" By a close study of life, and by a true and natural mode of 
expressing everything, Homer was enabled to venture upon the 
most peculiar and difficult situations, and to extricate himself from 
them with the completest success. The whole scene between 
Achilles and Priam, when the latter comes to the Greek camp for 
the purpose of redeeming the body of Hector, is at once the most 
profoundly skilful, and yet the simplest and most affecting passage 
in the Iliad. Quinctilian has taken notice of the following speech 
of Priam, the rhetorical artifice of which is so transcendant, that if 
genius did not often, especially in oratory, unconsciously fulfil the 
most subtle precepts of criticism, we might be induced, on this 
account alone, to consider the last book of the Iliad as what is called 
spurious, in other words, of later date than the rest of the poem. 
Observe the exquisite taste of Priam in occupying the mind of 
Achilles, from the outset, with the image of his father ; in gradually 
introducing the parallel of his own situation; and, lastly, the men- 
tioning of Hector's name when he perceives that the hero is softened, 
and then only in such a manner as to flatter the pride of the con- 
queror." 

603. A very good line ; terse, balanced, suggestive. It is distinctly 
Pope's own, there being no corresponding phrase in the original. 

633. " Who stoop to kiss the hand that slew my son." — Collins. 

637. Not to spurn, but to decline an act of excessive humility. 

640. This — that. See note on Book I., line 255, and cf. lines 
761, 762 below. 

671. Sincere. Sure. 

685-687. Phrygia bounds the Troad to the east, Lesbos to the 
south, the Hellespont to the north. This, then, is specifically say- 



162 THE ILIAD OF 1I0MER. 

ing, " You once ruled not only your own land, but the lands of 'your 
neighbors," — and now (the inferred contrast is) you, as a suppliant, 
beg the dead body of your son. 

703. Give. Allow, grant to. 

700. Offended either at the rejection of his hospitality, or fancy- 
ing a mistrust in his honor, or perhaps at the mere name of Hector. 
Achilles here shows how intense a struggle is going on in his breast. 
He must be allowed to act in his own way, — neither humeri nor 
doubted. 

741-745. "Achilles' ferocious treatment of the corpse of Hector 
cannot but offend as referred to the modern standard of humanity. 
The heroic age, however, must be Judged by its own moral laws. 
Retributive vengeance on the dead, as well as the living, was i duty 
inculcated by the religion of those barbarous times, which not only 
taught that evil inflicted on the author of evil was a solace to the 
injured man, but made the welfare of the soul alter death depen- 
dent on the fate of the body from which it had separated. Eence a 
denial of the rites essentia] to the soul's admission into the more 
favored regions of the lower world was a cruel punishment to the 
wanderer on the dreary shores of the infernal river. The complaint 
of the ghost of Patroclus to Achilles. <>f hut a brief postponement of 

his own obsequies, shows how efficacious their refusal to the remains 

of his destroyer must have been in satiating the thirst of revenge, 

which, even after death, was supposed to torment the dwellers in 
Hades. Hence before yielding up the body <>\' Hector to Priam, 

Achilles asks pardon of Patroclus for even this partial cession of his 
just rights of retribution." — Mirk. Vol. L, p. 289. 

74s. Composed. Again calm. 

757. The only mention of this legend in all Homer. " Von may 
eat without appearing hard of heart," runs Mr. Leaf's paraphrase, 
"for even Niobe ate in her grief, and she is the type of faithful 
mourning chosen by the gods to embody endless grief." 

774-779. In the original metre these lines have * pathetic charm 
almost wholly lost in translation. 

792. Canister. A small basket of reeds. 

" White lilies in full canisters they bring." 

Dryden's translation of Virgil's Eclogues. 

805. Careful. See note on Book VI., line 5. 



NOTES — BOOK XXIV. 163 

814-. Forth. The couches were spread in a vestibule for the 
reasons given in lines 818-823, below. 

832. Aspire. A very poetic and now obsolete use, in the sense 
of "rise." 

843. "Here," says Mure, "we part with Achilles, at the moment 
best calculated to exalt and purify our impression of his character. 
We had accompanied him through the effervescence, undulations, 
and final subsidence of his stormy passions. We now leave him in 
repose, and under the full influence of the more amiable affections ; 
while our admiration of his great qualities is chastened by the reflec- 
tion that, within a few short days, the mighty being in whom they 
were united was himself to be cut off suddenly in the full vigor of 
their exercise. . . . The frequent and touching allusions, inter- 
spersed throughout the ' Iliad,' to the speedy termination of its hero's 
course, and the moral on the vanity of human life which they indi- 
cate, are among the finest evidences of the spirit of ethic unity by 
which the whole framework of the poem is united." While granting 
this, I still must hold Achilles less human than his great antagonist, 
who, in his devotion to wife and child, his charity towards Helen, 
his half-patronizing, half-contemptuous kindness to Paris, his honesty 
and unselfishness, stands out a figure more in accord with our own 
standards, and so more likely to enlist and hold our sympathy and 
interest. 

870. Cassandra. Only mentioned here and in Book XIII. 
Nothing in Homer shows any such gift of prophecy as that with 
which she is endowed in later poems. 

911. According to the " Andromache " of Euripides, she was car- 
ried off by Neoptolemus, son of Achilles. But Virgil describes her 
as living in peaceful retirement and gentle regret as the wife of 
Helenus. 

929. Such was his fate, at the hands of Ulysses. 

942. Sustains her part. " Took up the loud lament." — Derby. 

959. The following observations of Coleridge furnish a most gal- 
lant and interesting view of Helen's character: "Few things are 
more interesting than to observe how the same hand that has given 
us the fury and inconsistency of Achilles, gives us also the consum- 
mate elegance and tenderness of Helen. She is through the ' Iliad ' a 
genuine lady, graceful in motion and speech, noble in her associations, 



164 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

full of remorse for a fault for which higher powers seem responsible, 
yet graceful and affectionate towards those with whom that fault 
had committed her. I have always thought the following speech, in 
which Helen laments Hector, and hints at her own invidious and 
unprotected situation in Troy, as almost the sweetest passage in the 
poem. It is another striking instance of that refinement of feeling 
and softness of tone which so generally distinguish the last hook of 
the 'Iliad' from the rest." — Classic Po( ■•/*, p, 198, xeq. 

0(54. To account for this reckoning a legend exists of the Grecians, 
driven out of their course, landing first in Mysia. Here their forces 
hecame scattered, and the expedition returned to reorganize. This 
seems ahsurd, especially as a much simpler explanation of Cowper's 
is well known : he says. " In order to make this a true reckoning 

must suppose that it cost ten years to assemble the powers of Gn 
which, added to the ten years <>i the Biege, will complete the number. 
It is a large allowance ; hut Helen's computation cannot be justified 

without it, since even I'lvsses was absent from Ithaca only twenty 
years, whose return COSl him ten after the accomplishment of Troy's 
destruction." 

( .>7!>. " For through the breadth of Troy none Love me now."— 
Collins. A line that improves on Pope's in it- osoi pres- 

ent desertion and past kindness at Hector's hands. 

980. In Lamlor's " imaginary Conversations," that between 

"MenelaUS and Helen'' give* a vivid picture of the end of Troy, 
and Helen's final pardon. 

In the above passage we may again see the strong contrast ever 

maintained between Helen and Andromache. The one is charming 

even in her frailty, attracting OS ftfl we condemn: the other, true, 
blameless, womanly, ever hears witness to the sweetness and purity 
of the highest domestic relations. 

989-998. A mere repetition of the funeral of Patroclus (Batik 
XXIII.). 

1009, 1010. To guard against Grecian treachery. 

1016. Coleridge says. " I cannot take my leave of this noble poem 
without expressing how much I am struck with the plain conclusion 
of it. It is like the exit o\ a great man out of company whom he 
has entertained magnificently, — neither pompous nor familiar: not 
contemptuous, yet without much ceremony." 






DICTIONARY OF PROPER NAMES. 

Achaia. A small region in southern Thessaly, containing Phthia. 
It was probably the original home of the Achaean race. 

Achelous. A Grecian river rising in Epirus and emptying into 
the Ionian Sea. 

Achilles. Son of Peleus and Thetis, and chief of the Myrmidons. 
"In Achilles, Homer summed up and fixed forever the ideal of the 
Greek character. He presented an imperishable picture of their 
national youthfulness, and of their ardent genius, to the Greeks. 
The ' beautiful human heroism ' of Achilles, his strong personality, 
his fierce passions controlled and tempered by divine wisdom, his 
intense friendship and love that passed the love of women, above all, 
the splendor of his youthful life in death made perfect, hovered like 
a dream above the imagination of the Greeks, and insensibly deter- 
mined their subsequent development." — J. A. Symonds. (" Studies 
of the Greek Poets," Vol. I., p. 20.) 

Adrastus. A king of Argos. 

JEgeon. So called by men: called Briareus by the gods. A 
huge monster with a hundred hands and fifty heads. Earlier legends 
represent him conquering the Titans. 

iEneas. A Trojan prince, son of Anchises, king of Dardanus, 
and Aphrodite. Robbed of his cattle by Achilles, he sided, with his 
Dardans, against the Greeks. After the sack of Troy he journeyed 
to Italy, and became the ancestral hero of the Romans. 

JEolians. One of the four great divisions of the Greek race, 
occupying most of northern Greece* and western Peloponnesus. 

^Ethiopians. In Homer represented as dwelling on the edge 
of the earth's disk to the south-east and south-west. " The ^Ethi- 
opians, says Diodorus, 1. iii., are said to be the inventors of pomps, 
sacrifices, solemn meetings, and other honors paid to the gods. From 
hence arose their character of piety which is here celebrated." — 
Pope. 

Agamemnon. Son of Atreus, king of Mycenae, and the most 

165 



166 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

powerful ruler in Greece. Led the expedition against Troy, and on 
his return was slain by Clytemnestra, his wife. 

Ajax. Son of Telamon, and one of the leading Greek heroes in 
the war, famous for his size, physical strength, and beauty. Next to 
Achilles and Diomed, he was the bravest in the Grecian host. He 
several times engaged in single combat with Hector, and gained the 
advantage over him, and was always a terror to the Trojans. 

Alceimis. A Myrmidon. Friend of Achilles. 

Aleian Field. Or ''Field of Wandering.'" Between the rivers 
Pyramns and Pinarus in Cilicia. BellerophoD was condemned to 
wander here for his presumption in soaring heavenwards on Pegasus. 

AmaZOIlS. A race of women supposed to have dwelt on the 
coast of the Black Sea. They were represented as forming a state 
from Which men were exeludeil. as devoting themselves to war and 

hunting, and as being often in conflict with the Greeks of the Heroic 

Age. 

Andromache. Wife of Hector, and daughter of Ketion. king of 
Thebe in Cilicia, who. with his seven sons, was slain by Achilles 

when Thebe was taken by the Greeks. 
Aiitenor. Wisesl of the Trojan elders. 

Apollo. Son of Zens and Latona. and one of the greater 
He represents the light- and life-giving influence, as well as the 
deadly power, of the sun. with whirh he has sometimes heen iden- 
tified. He was the leader of the Moses, god and patron of music. 
poetry, and healing, and was the ruler of pestilence. 

Aretaon. A Trojan slain by Tencer. 

Arrives, xhe Greeks of Argolis, and subjects of Agamemnon. 

The name is often extended to all Greeks. 

Ar*»-os. The leading Dorian city in Argolis. but generally used 
for Peloponnesus, or Greece, in a wide territorial sense. In the 
earlier part of the "Iliad" no local kingdom is referred to: later 
the reference is to the realm of Diomed. 

Arisba. A town in the Troad. 

Astyanax. " Chief of the City ; " also called Scamandrius. Son 
of Hector and Andromache. 

Atreus. King of Mycenae, and the son of Pelops. 

Atrides. (Patronymic.) Either son of Atreus. — Agamemnon or 
Menelaus, — but generally used for the former. 



DICTIONARY OF PROPER NAMES. 167 

Aurora. Called Eos by the Greeks. The goddess of the dawn. 
The poets represented her as rising out of the ocean in a chariot, 
" her rosy fingers dropping gentle dew." 

Automedon. Comrade and charioteer of Achilles. 

Bacchus. Or Dionysus, son of Zeus and Seinele, and god of 
wine, personifying both its good and its bad qualities. 

Bellerophon. Son of Glaucus, king of Corinth, and grandfather 
of the Glaucus mentioned in Book VI. 

Briareus. See JEgeon. 

Briseis. Or Hippodamia. The daughter of Briseus, here a cap- 
tive, beloved of Achilles. 

Calesius. A companion of Axylus, slain by Diomed. 

Cassandra. A prophetess, daughter of Priam and Hecuba. By 
command of Apollo, her predictions, though true, were always dis- 
credited. After the fall of Troy she was enslaved by Agamemnon. 

Ceneus. King of the Lapithae, among whom Polyphemus was a 
leader. 

Centaurs. The children of Ixion, forming a tribe in Thessaly. 
They are the only wild men mentioned in Homer. No allusion is 
made by this poet to their semi-equine form. 

Chalcis. Chief town of Eubcea, some thirty-four miles north of 
Athens. 

Chimsera. A fire-breathing monster in Lycia, slain by Bellero- 
phon. Its fore part was of a lion, its middle of a goat, its hind part 
of a dragon. The only instance of a mixed monster in Homer. 

Chrysa. A port in the Troad where was situated a shrine of 
Apollo. 

Chryseis. Or Astynome, daughter of Chryses, who was a priest 
of Apollo at Chrysa. She was noted for her beauty and her skill in 
embroidery. 

Cilicia. In Asia Minor, between iEolia and the Troad. In 
Roman times the Apostle Paul was born in its capital, Tarsus. 

Cilia. A town in the Troad near Chrysa. 

Clytemnestra. See Agamemnon. 

Creta. Or Crete ; an island in the Mediterranean, south-east of 
Greece, south-west of Asia Minor. 

Cynthia. One of the names of Artemis or Diana, the moon- 
goddess, derived from Mt. Cynthus, in Delos, her birthplace. 



168 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Dardans. The inhabitants of Dardania, a province of Mysia, 
but generally used in a wider sense for all Trojans, because Darda- 
nus, son of Zeus and Electra, was their mythical ancestor. 

Diana. Goddess of the moon, and protectress of the female - 

Diomed. Son of Tydeus, the king of Argos, and one of the most 
famous, as well as one of the bravest, of the Grecians. 

Dryas. (In Book I.) A king of the Lapithae. (In Book VI.) 
The father of Lycurgus. 

Ketion. See Andromache, 

Klatus. An ally of Troy. 

Kphyre. Early name for Corinth. Noted as a centre of com- 
merce, literature, and art. 

Huryalus. An Argive leader. With Diomed and Sthenelus lie 
commanded a fleet of eighty ships, carrying warriors from nine 
cian cities or provinces. 

Kurybates. One <>f the heralds of Agamemnon. 

Kurypylus. Son of Ekunmon, a Thessalian prince. He » 
with Patroclus among those Dearest Achilles. 

(ilaucus. A Lycian prince, allied t<> Priam. 

Hector. Son of Priam and BeCUDa, and champion of the Tro- 
jans. 

Hecuba. Daughter of a Phrygian king, and second wife of 

Priam, she was enslaved after the fall of Troy. 

Helen. The daughter of Zens and Leda, and wife of Menelaus. 
kiniz; of Sparta. Her abduction by Paris was the cause of the Trojan 

war. "Helen of Troy is one of those ideal creatures of the fancy 
over which time, space, and circumstance, and moral prohahility, 
exert no sway. . . . She moves through Greek heroic legend as the 
desired of all men, and the possessed of many." — .1. A. Sym 
("Studies of the Greek Poets," Vol. I., p. 124.) 

Helenus. A son of Priam. Celebrated as a prophet. 

Hellespont. The early name for the Strait of Dardanelles. 

Hermes. Or Mercury. Son of Zens and Maia. He is the herald 
and messenger of the gods; protector of herdsmen, travellers, and 
rogues; patron of science, invention, commerce, and the arts of life. 

Hippoloohus. (In Book I.) A son of Antimachus, killed by 
Agamemnon. (In Book VI.) A Lycian, son of Bellerophon, and 
father of Glaucus. 



DICTIONARY OF PBOPER NAMES. 169 

Hippoplacia. Or Thebe, in Mysia. The metropolis of Eetion, 
and birthplace of Andromache. 

Hippothous. An Argive leader of the Pelasgi. 

Hyperia. A fountain in Messenia. 

Ida. A mountain in Mysia overlooking the Troad. It is famous 
in all Greek legend. 

Idaeus. Herald of the Trojans, and charioteer of Priam. In 
Book VII. he goes to Agamemnon from Paris, offering to restore the 
riches of Helen, and to ask for a truce to bury the dead. 

Ilion. Or Ilium. See Troy. 

Ilus. Son of Tros, and mythical founder of Ilion. 

Imbrus. An island in the JEgean Sea. 

Iris. One of the lesser goddesses, their messenger. Often held 
as the personification of the rainbow. 

Juno. The queen of heaven, and the highest divinity next to 
Jupiter, of whom she was the sister and wife. 

Jupiter. Jove, or Zeus. The supreme deity, controlling and 
directing the future. His weapon was the thunderbolt. The eagle 
was especially consecrated to him. 

Laodice. A daughter of Priam (Book VI.). Another Laodice is 
referred to in Book I., as the handmaid of Odysseus. 

Latona. Or Leto. Mother, by Jupiter, of Apollo and Diana. 

Lemnos. An island in the iEgean Sea. 

Lyeia. A division of Asia Minor, bordering on the Mediterranean 
and Phrygia. 

Lycurgus. A king of Thrace. Blinded and driven mad by the 
gods as punishment for driving Bacchus from his kingdom. 

3Iars. Son of Zeus and Juno, and god of war. 

Melantliius. A Trojan slain by Eurypylus. 

Minerva. Identified with Athene and Pallas. One of the three 
greater goddesses, and patroness of war, wisdom, and the liberal 
arts. 

3Iyrmidons. A Thessalian tribe ruled by Achilles. They are 
said to have been ants changed by Jupiter into men, in order that 
Thessaly, in which they lived, might not be without inhabitants 
when his son iEacus was made king of it ; but this legend probably 
rose because of the tribe's indefatigable industry in cultivating their 
lands. Phthia was known the world over for its great fertility. 



170 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Mysia. North-western part of Asia Minor, between Phrygia and 
the ^Egean. 

Nestor. A king of Pylos, famous as the oldest councillor of the 
Greeks before Troy. 

Niobe. Daughter of Tantalus, who, proud of her numerous 
progeny, provoked the anger of Latona by boasting over her. Foi 
this, Apollo and Diana, the children of Latona. killed her BOUfl and 
daughters. Xiobe herself was changed into a stone 

Nyssa. A mystical region Localized at various times in India or 
Egypt. In Homer it becomes a mountainous district in Thrace, the 
kingdom of Lycurgus, and the birthplace of Bacchus. 

Oceanus. A swift and unbounded stream encircling all known 
lands and seas. In personification, the husband of Tethys. 

(Kneus. A king of Calydon, father of Meleagei and Tydeus. 

Olympus. There were several mountains so named. In tlie 
" Iliad " two are referred to: one in Bithynia, within sight of 

Troy, and the more famous one of Thessaly. This latter is some 
9,750 feet ill height, and was Supposed to he the Special home of the 

gods. 

Opheltius. (In Book I.) A (ireek slain hy Hector. (In Book 
VI.) A Trojan slain hy Buryalus. 

Orion. A giant ami hunter, Changed after his death to a con- 
stellation. 

Pallas. See Minerva. 

Paris. The second son of Priam and Hecuba. Before his birth 
Hecuba dreamt that she had gives birth to a firebrand that caused 
a conflagration in the city, which was interpreted that the child 
would bring disaster on Troy. He was accordingly exposed on Mt. 

Ida, hut rescued and raised by a shepherd. Accidentally discover- 
ing his parental, he returned to the city, was received, married 

CEnone, and became celebrated for his beauty, gallantry, and accom- 
plishments. Owing to his decision as to which of the godde88eS Was 
tin 4 fairest. Venus assisted him in carrying off from Sparta. Helen, 
wife of King Menelaus. This was the cause of the war, during 
which he brought upon himself the detestation of his friends by his 
cowardice, his vanity, and his stubborn determination not to give up 
Helen. At the taking of Troy, Philoctetes fatally wounded him 
with a poisoned arrow. 



DICTIONARY OF PROPER NAMES. 171 

Patroclus. The intimate friend and close companion of Achilles, 
and formerly saved by him from death. 

Pedasus. A Trojan slain by Euryalus. 

Peleus. A king of the Myrmidons, son of iEacus, and father of 
Achilles. 

Pelides. A patronymic formed from Peleus. Always used of 
Achilles. 

Percnos. "Black" or "dappled." The specific name of the 
eagle. 

Phoebus. An epithet of Apollo; it means " the shining one." 

Phrygia. A country of Asia Minor, to the south of Bithynia 
and the east of Mysia. 

Phthia. Chief city of the Myrmidons in Thessaly, and the home 
of Peleus and Achilles. 

Phylacus. A Trojan slain by Leitus. 

Pidytes. A Trojan slain by Odysseus. 

Pirithous. A son of Zeus. Though a native of Athens, he had 
lived among the Centaurs, and, when he married Hippodamia, in- 
vited them to his wedding feast. As they misconducted themselves, 
a quarrel ensued between them and the Lapithse, who killed many 
of them, and drove the rest to Malea, a promontory of Peloponnesus. 

Pluto. The lord of the infernal regions, a son of Saturn, and 
brother of Jove and Neptune. 

Polites. The last son of Priam, slain at his feet byNeoptolemus, 
son of Achilles. 

Polydamus. A Thessalian famous for his strength. 

Polyphemus. Not the one-eyed monster of the Odyssea. See 
Ceneus. 

Polypcetes. Son of Pirithous. A leader of the Lapithse. 

Priam. King of Troy. 

Proteus. A sea-god, endowed with the gift of prophecy, and 
the power of assuming at will any form he chose. 

Pylos. A Messenian town, the home of Nestor, 

Samos. An island in the iEgean, colonized by the Ionians, and 
an important centre of Greek commerce, civilization, and art. (In 
Book XXIV.) the name is used for Samothrace. 

Sarpedon. A Lycian prince, son of Zeus and Laodamia. An 
ally of Troy, and slain by Patroclus. 



172 THE ILIAD OF HOMER. 

Satnio. A forest stream in Mysia. 

Saturn. Father of Jove, Neptune, and Pluto. The special pro- 
tector of agriculture and all vegetation. 

Scaean. The "left-hand" gate of Troy, facing the Greek cam]), 
and overlooking the Trojan plain. It is the only gate of the city 
mentioned by name. 

Scamander. A Mysian river, flowing through the Trojan plain, 
between the city and the Greek camp. 

Sidon. The oldest and wealthiest city of Phoenicia. A busy 
port, famous for its commerce and manufactures. 

Siiithians. A people of Lemnos, where Vulcan La said to have 
had his forge underground. 

Sipylos. A mountain in Lydia, Asia Minor. 

Sisyphus. Founder of Kphyre (Corinth), and the craftiest of all 
men. 

Smiiitheiis. This surname of Apollo is derived by some from 
sminthos, the Phrygian name for a mouse, because he delivered the 

surrounding country. from a plague of mice that infested it. Others 
derive it from Sminthe, a town in Troas. 

Mr. Lang (" Customs and Myths'*) Bays that in later times mice 

were allowed to live under his altar, and an Image of one kept ^u 
his Sacred tripod. 

Solyini. An ancient nation dwelling in the mountainous parts 
of Lycia. 

Sparta. An ancient city of Laconia, Greece, and the hereditary 
kingdom of Menelaus. 

Stygian. Adj. from Styx, a mighty river, the tenth pari of the 

water of Oceanus. flowing through Hades. 

Talthybius. One of the heralds of Agamemnon. 

Tenedos. A small island in the JSgean Sea off the O0as1 <>f 
Troas. 

Teucer. (</) A son of Telamon, and Btep-hrother of Ajax; noted 
as an archer. (6) A son of Scamander, and 1ir>t king of Troy. 

Teuthras. Father of Axylus. 

Theano. Daughter of Cisseus, and wife of An tenor; priestess of 
Athene in Troy. 

Thebes A city in Mysia, at the foot of Mt. Placus, and home of 
Eetion. 



DICTIONARY OF PROP EH NAMES. 178 

Theseus. Chief hero of Attica, Greece. Slew the Minotaur, mar- 
ried (and abandoned) Ariadne, fought with the Amazons, was one of 
the Argonauts, cut off the head of Medusa, and performed other 
marvellous exploits. 

Thessaly. The north-eastern division of Greece. 

Thetis. Chief of the Nereids. Mother, by Peleus, of Achilles. 

Thrace. A region in south-eastern Europe ; in Homeric times the 
entire region north of Greece. 

Troy. Or Ilium. Capital of the Troad, and home of Priam. 

Troilus. A son of Priam. Grote (p. 299, Vol. I.) says, " Troilus 
is only once named in the ' Iliad ; ' he was mentioned also in the 
'Cypriad,' but his youth, beauty, and untimely end made him an 
object of great interest with the subsequent poets." 

Tydides. A patronymic formed from Tydeus, generally applied 
to Diomed. 

Ulysses. Or Odysseus. A king of Ithaca, father of Telemachus. 
by Penelope. He is famous for his adventurous wanderings upon 
the way home from Troy. In his intelligent courage and shrewd 
wisdom he is the ideal representative of the Ionic Greeks. 

Vulcan. The god of fire and the working of metals, and the 
patron of all handicraftsmen. He was the son of Jupiter and Juno, 
and was lame from his having been hurled down from heaven by 
Jupiter in a fit of anger. He was the divine artist, the creator of all 
that was beautiful, as well as of all that was mechanically wonderful, 
in the abodes of the gods. 

Xanthus. Same as Scamander. 



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LEACH, SHEWELL, & SANBORN, 

Boston, New York, and Chicago. 
4 



